


Dreams Within the Force

by Silverbulletsdeath



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Brainwashing, Cuddling, Jedi, M/M, No idea what I'm doing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Touch-Starved, playing with the force
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:14:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 29,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5469521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverbulletsdeath/pseuds/Silverbulletsdeath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn is lost without his family.  Poe and Rey are what he has.  So when Poe offers to take him to her, he goes.  When he reaches her, he learns about the force, about connections, about tranquility and turmoil.  In the end this will shape his relationships and his part in the war to come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Finding Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, the summary is vague because that's my intention. I have no idea what this is going to be about except for the relationship (because duh) and what the summery puts forth. I just want to explore what the force could be to different people. So yes, all three can sense the force, sorry, I know that doesn't work well with what is cannon, but I want to explore it from a different angle, so I'm taking the "Force Awakens" to mean these three have a connection to it. Some just not in a way that will mean they will be Jedi. 
> 
> That said, I usually don't write male characters because I have a hard time getting inspiration for them and writing them believably (yes, I know, terribly sexist of me), so I'm not sure how I'll fair writing this. Still, hopefully I won't run into problems like I have before where inspiration dries up and I can't come up with what to write. That's actually half the reason I'm jumping into this with no plan.

So easy, it had been just so easy, too easy.  Finn closed his eyes, he'd taken the longer route, refusing to let anything metal into his body, and thus the road to recovery was just a little slower.  As he woke up and started on the way to recovery, he realized that the starry eyed start to this whole thing was over.  Maybe it was that everything had slowed down, maybe that Rey had left him behind to find Luke, maybe it was all e sideways glances he got, but his time as just the brave Storm Trooper brave for turning his back on the First Order was over.  He was now a traitor to a cause, a brainwashed from infancy man who somehow broke through his haze to know what the decent thing to do is.

Fin snorts to himself, he can only be grateful that they believed his when he told them everything he knew.  They believed him because Leia believed him and immediately supported and that's what they needed him to be.  Now everyone looked sideways at him, not attacking, but not necessarily friendly either. 

At first it was easy to ignore it, to completely miss it.  The way the nurse flinched was because she had bad experiences from spooked soldiers waking up to her hovering over them.  The people in the medical wing were there only for their loved ones and didn't want an unknown man listening in on them.  The soldiers getting treated were just jumpy, hurting, and high on meds. 

Now though, he was sure it was more than that.  It didn't hurt.  Not really.  This isolation was different than what he was used to, but it wasn't all encompassing as he was used to. 

Still, Finn had not been able to get out of this place.  He went from his bed to recovery to the therapist.  He couldn't get out of that.  Leia isn't a stupid leader.  She'll listen to her best pilot and husbands words, but she won't let them overshadow the fact that this could be a trap.  Actually, the one time she came and talked to him, she had been by to tell her why they were insisting he go to the therapist. 

She had spoken about what he had gone through and where he was at the moment.  They couldn't have him flying away in his shape.  He still didn't know who he was, what he believed.  All he knew were his friends.  One was dead.  Two were far away.  And one had immediately been sent on another mission.  At this point it was best he at least figure out who he was without the conditioning and where he would fit in with the Resistance. 

The General hadn't said it, but under her words, in the way she said certain things, he knew that he was also seeing this person to make sure it wasn't a trick with the First Order.  The way she kept saying that she trusted him, it was clear she really believed that at least Finn believed he was only helping.  But he could be a sleeper.  The First Order could have made him believe he was turning coat, only to have him turn back to his usual mindless self and kill every single one of them.

The thought was chilling to Finn.  He couldn't see himself turning on the Resistance, not when his three friends were so entrenched in it now.  Finn looked down on his hands.  Rey had hated when he held her hands, but it had been a comfort thing.  No, as a Storm Trooper, physical contact was not allowed.  As children they were only touched by cold machines, and only to direct them, continue their training, or discipline. 

But Finn, he had been in sanitation.  They said it had to do with focus.  He knew that he was the perfect soldier in theory.  He did everything he asked without question.  He carried out his orders and repeated their words back to them perfectly.  He was perfect in that he lacked any sort of personality at all.  He hadn't just been following what his masters told him, he'd done so in a blinding way that had often thrown his fellow Storm Troopers.

They were brainwashed, yes.  But with words and beliefs and maybe a little hypnosis, but hypnosis wasn't the building block.  The Storm Troopers had to believe.  Had to follow.  To question was normal.  Too much questioning was dealt with severally and too often with death.  But ones that were from innocent mouths, that showed the person could think, the First Order almost wanted those moments.  As soon as they came to the forefront was when they could destroy it  Turn the Storm Trooper back to his side.

The fact that he just went with it, it made his direct superiors a little off balance, the only reason he got any attention was his need to touch.  Not much, a hand on the shoulder, wiping off blood.  It had never been enough to get him written up, and the more trouble he got into with it, the less he did it.  Then one Storm Trooper took his hand in the darkness as they worked disposal, no cameras, no lights, and a beast in the darkness that could rip them to shreds.

It got around.  Finn never knew if his superiors learned that his weakness for touch was exploited by the Storm Troopers around them.   No that it went beyond a held hand to direct him, they didn't have that much privacy, and they had too much going through their systems.  They called him slow, stupid, that his mind didn't work right.  That's why they had to hold his hand.  They were doing him a favor.  Making him seem at least a little valuable. 

And then he and another sanitation worker had been drafted to go down to attack the city.  An important chess piece had two workers that usually worked with everything no one wanted anymore to go and exterminate everything in the city.  Then the Storm Trooper had died.  He'd been gone when Finn had reached for him, the last thing left of him bloody stripes across his helmet.

"Well, my friend, where is your head?" asked a familiar voice. Finn snapped up out of his own head to look up at Poe.

"You're back," said Finn.  He was reaching up again, but before he could reflect back on his obsession to touch, he was encompassed in Poe's arms.  He smiled, giving a few quick slaps to the back before he drew back. "Have you heard about Rey?"

"Only that she left," said Poe, he drew back and took off his blanket.  Finn looked up at his friend.  He wore loose clothing, with bandages wrapped lightly around basically healed injuries.  The doctors were always saying how in just a few days he'd be okayed to go to his newly assigned living quarters.  Just be patient.  There were complications.  His physical recovery was going well, but that didn't mean he was out of the woods yet. "Come on, I'm going to show you our room."

"I'm supposed to stay here," said Finn blankly, but quickly grabbed Poe's hand when the other man grabbed his arm.  Poe laughed and shook his head.

"They're worrying too much," he said, reaching down and then grabbing some shoes and pushing them into Finn's hands. "You're bunking with me."

Finn found himself smiling.  Bunking with Poe sounded alright.  Maybe being an unknown quantity wasn't that bad if the person who was going to be watching him was the best pilot in the Resistance. He smiled, pulled on his shoes and let his hands fall to his side.  He had an idea that the therapist he'd only seen twice had already picked up that he talked about connections a lot.  Maybe she thought he felt bad about killing Storm Troopers.  Finn felt his mouth go thin.  His time as a Storm Trooper had taught him how to not get too invested.  Plus, any connection he had made with the few Storm Troopers he'd spent any time around were now dead. 

No one spared Finn a glance as Poe led him away from the hanger, leaving the main base completely before entering another building.  Poe said hello to everyone they passed, BB-8 chirping along.  Finn watched as they went, noting the casual high fives and quick pats Poe exchanged with everyone along with a standard greeting. Poe seemed to know everyone's name, and well, it wasn't a surprise that everyone knew his.

The room Poe led Finn to was medium size.  Not too large, with four dresser to go with the four beds.  Bunk beds to be exact.  Poe sighed, and Finn glanced his way.  When Poe noticed Finn's glance he lit up with a wide smile. "I'm afraid Zane didn't make it out of the battle.  You'll be taking his bunk above mine."

Finn felt himself flushing in what had to be shame.  But that didn't make sense he wasn't the one who killed Finn's friend.  Actually, it had been Finn's information that had saved everyone.  Hadn't it? 

"Hey, look up buddy," said Poe, grabbing Finn by the shoulder quickly before he started to strip out of his pilot gear. "You have nothing to fear.  A few days after being grounded, and I'll have convinced the General that they need their ace pilot and Rey's friend defending the Jedi."

"You think that can happen?" asked Finn.  Poe smiled widely at him. Finn wondered how the man could be so happy all the time.  Some of it had to be fake right?

"I know it can," said Poe, slipping into what looked like more casual clothes, though admittedly something that could easily be moved in and so he could be ready if he was sent out on an emergency. "Who are you seeing?"

"What?" asked Finn.

"You're therapist.  They gave you one right?  They always make me see one after a battle.  Well, if I have enough time to.  Leia's assigned me TRey tonight as long as I don't get shipped out again.  After all, I was tortured to the point I gave out valuable information," said Poe with a dramatic sigh and then he grinned wickedly at Finn. "I have every intention in making it clear that going to see the Jedi and learning about how he was able to pull that information from my mind will be of great importance."

"Do you really think that's where you need to be?" asked Finn, and then shook his head.  That wasn't his place to question. "Sorry, I'm seeing Garrot."

"Really?" asked Poe, rubbing his hands together. "You talk about Rey a lot?"

"Enough, I guess," said Finn, blushing.  Poe laughed, slapping his friend on his back.

"Perfect, don't worry buddy.  I'll get you to her in no time flat," said Poe, then BB-8 made some beeping sounds.  Poe turned to the droid. "Alright, let's get to the mess and see what they're serving today."

Finn found himself once again pulled along by Poe.  the little droid doing happy laps around their feet.  He hoped Poe was right.  He wanted to see Rey again.  He felt like he needed to see her again.  And if he could get Poe to go with him, then maybe it would be alright.  They hadn't abandoned him.  Not really.  They just had these big important lives and skills.  And he was just... well, a grunt.  But maybe, once they were all together, maybe then that nagging feeling that he wouldn't see Rey again.  That she was lost to him.  Maybe that would finally go away. 


	2. Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I still have no idea what this is.

Really, Finn should have known better than to go back to the medical wing.  But he'd woken up in a sleepy haze after falling asleep listening to Poe talk about his latest mission.  When he'd woken up, Poe had rolled out of the bottom bunk and the other two men had followed suit.  The morning was started quietly at first, with Poe mechanically getting ready, and everyone being awkward about the new guy they were bunking with. 

Then Poe seemed to wake up as it were.  His head just lifted from where it had been staring out into space and his gaze went immediately went to the two men awkwardly and slowly got ready for the day while Finn just sort of stared awkwardly at his dresser.  Poe sighed, and then did so again with more exaggeration, letting his knees drop as he rolled his eyes.  He reminded Finn they'd gotten clothes for him the day before, and then went on to tell some ridiculous story about how he'd been in close quarters with two girls and the hijinks he'd gone through to make them more comfortable changing around him. 

Breakfast had been some sort of mild gruel, that his two roommates had pouted over for a few minutes.  Finn had been confused at first, mechanically eating his own bowl of tasteless white stuff when Poe had stopped his hands and then with a smile picked out a simple little bag.  He dumped out a little in everyone's bowl.  They two men smiled and dug in, immediately talking about the taste, a sort of sweet mustiness or something.  Finn took a bite, the smell got into his nose and he sneezed. 

Then they left him, and he had nowhere to go.  So he went to the medical wing to do his exercises.  That had only made the medical staff very uncomfortable, and made Finn admit that they really had been keeping him in the medical bay just to keep an eye on him until someone stronger could babysit him.

So Finn made himself scarce before someone came to remove him. 

The cafeteria was his last stopping grounds.  He just felt so useless.  What was he good for anyway?  He'd never taken classes in anything useful.  He knew sanitation, but what good would that do in the end?  He didn't think they were looking for people to move around junk and shit at the base.  He knew how to shoot, but he had an idea that at the moment, it wasn't a good thing to show interest in that.  If anything was going to make these people even more nervous around him was if he showed any interest in weapons.  Which meant he should probably avoid. 

Still, sitting in the mess with no one around just seemed weird.

Finn then stood up, and then blushed, glad no one was around.  Because maybe he couldn't practice weapon training, but he could do drills.  Well not drill, drills, obviously, but he could run, and better yet, he could run in the fresh air anywhere he wanted as long as it was on base. He never got to do that.  He always had to do training drills inside where a jog was around wherever they were training or on machines where he didn't actually move from one spot.

Now, now he could just run.  Now there was something besides touch that he had secretly craved was to taste the outside world.  He'd been a babe when he'd been taken, no memories of real fresh air, and sometimes during sanitation when a door was opened.  But he was never the one to go through that door, never the one to go to the surface on some mission to wipe out the pests that had been brought accidently from other planets and deep space in the guise of a training mission.

Not that he hadn't seen his share of monsters working sanitation.

Finn took a deep breath, bringing back his arms and leaning his head toward the sky when he broke out of the mess.  Sure, in the mess of it all he could smell the trees.  Finn looked toward the trees.  To be able to go into the forest.  There had to be some trails through the forest, some rough path that people followed in their idle moments.

But Finn shook his head.  That wasn't for him.  They wouldn't trust him going off by his own. 

So instead he started to run around the edge of the barracks.  He had started heading toward airfield, until he realized how dangerous that would be for everyone involved.  Just because there was a big battle going on did not mean that people weren't constantly landing and taking off. 

He had circled around three times, and had just started to get into a comfortable rhythm when Poe joined him.  Jogging along with his now seemingly stuck on smile.  Finn sighed.

"Am I making people uncomfortable?" asked Finn with a sigh.  Poe actually chuckled.

"You bet," he said, seemingly happy that Poe apparently kept messing up.  Finn glared over at him, meeting Poe's eyes for a second, before he burst out laughing.  His laughter quickly followed by Poe.  They didn't break stride though, apparently both of them too well trained.

"So, what trouble did I get you out of?" asked Finn, glancing to where Poe was running beside him.

"Oh, I don't know if I was in trouble," said Poe, his voice teasingly light.  Finn rolled his eyes. "It's just that I think I had overstayed my welcome with the General."

"She not receptive to your idea?" asked Finn, trying to keep his tone light.  He tried to remind himself that he had been telling himself all day not to get his hopes up.  There had never really been a chance that he would be able to go and see Rey.  Not while she was with Luke Skywalker.  The Jedi was too valuable.  That could be Finn's trigger or whatever.  In seconds he could be laughing and telling Rey how much he missed her, and the next thing they would all know was that he'd take out a blaster or knife and killed the new apprentice and the last master.

"As receptive as I thought she'd be on the first day," said Poe with a shrug. "Actually, we were about to get to the part where she really started to grill me about my mission."

"Isn't that important?" asked Finn before he could shut his stupid mouth.  Poe just shook his head.

"I already told her all the important bits about it," said Poe. "Who cares about the little bit of fun flying and greasing of hands I had to do in order to get the job done faster?  The Resistance isn't about to run out of money.  Not even after what happened to the Senate."

Finn glanced to the side sure for a second that he'd heard a beat of hesitation in the other man's voice.  He wondered what it felt to those with the Force.  The Force was everywhere.  It meant everything.  But who had been lost?  No one to hear those voice echoing across the universe.  Just a loss of money to allies.  And was money important?  Was command important?  Finn shook his head and started running again, realizing too late that he'd slowed his pace.  Poe didn't comment, though his smiled had slipped a little and his gaze far away. 

Suddenly the other man seemed to snap out of his thoughts.  He grinned widely at Finn, grabbed his hand, and stated to pull him away.  Finn felt himself immediately lean in, eyes focused only on Poe.  Poe's hand was dry wrinkled under his touch a little.  Finn could feel his own sweat transferred onto that skin.  He took a deep breath in and then let it out in a quick breath.

The terrain changed, and Finn almost tripped, though thankfully he was able to stop himself.  He glanced at Poe, slow, under his lashes so his head stayed bowed.  The way he did so that his helmet wouldn't go up, so that the others wouldn't know he was looking.  The way he always was so that he didn't acknowledge the act he was participating.  You didn't hold hands.  You never held hands with someone.  No connections.  You were an agent of the First Order.  You stood outside yourself.  You were the ideal.  The very reflection of everything the First Order stood for.  Every Stormtrooper was the face of aggression, of reform, or truth, of justice.  They were of one unit, one brain, and if they died, then more would soon come to take their place.

"Here," said Poe, dragging Finn from s own mind.  Poe stopped, just at what looked like a flowing river.  Small though tiny in comparison to what he saw around him. "It's a brook."

"Alright," said Finn slowly. "I've seen more impressive things just flying into here."

Poe retaliated by leaning over and flicking the water at Finn. Finn leaned over and threw some back.  Soon they were doing it back and forth.  It was pathetic really.  They hardly got wet.  Finn stumbled in and the water hardly went up past his ankle.  It wasn't until Poe tackled them both into the brook that they actually got wet. 

Finn didn't know when his sides started hurting from laughing so hard, but at that time was when his face started hurting from smiling so much.  They soon calmed down, leaning against each other, breathing hard despite having hardly done anything at all.  Finn let his head fall back onto the man's shoulder, just for a second.  Then he sat up, hearing the whirl of machines as Poe checked in with someone to confirm that he was alright and alive.

"So," said Poe with a few breathless laughs escaping his lips, he turned and Finn turned with him, the man's warmth leaving him as they looked at each other, helping each other stand, though Finn was almost able to trip up Finn before the other man dragged him down into the water again.  They laughed, standing up this time, not offering so they wouldn't pull each other down. "So, you ready to go back and scandalize everyone now?"

"How in the world is us coming back looking like drowned rats going to convince anyone that we need to see Luke Skywalker and Rey?" asked Finn.  Poe laughed, throwing his head back.

"Trust me, my friend.  A little bit of madness and earned trust goes a long way." Finn looked at him in confusion, irritated his friend could read what he needed so well, while Finn could only guess at him most of the time.  Poe let out a laugh and grabbed Finn's hand again, and they were running.  For the few seconds that the finger entwined, Poe felt his mind go blank.  He followed Finn as easily as his body would let him.  Finn felt himself pulled hard by the arm, dragged slower than his spirit wished to go.  Just to follow.  Just go.

His mind as blank as it had ever been when he was a Stormtrooper under the First Order.  And it felt right.  It felt like where he needed to be.  It felt like home. 


	3. Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously did I have a water fight at the end of the last chapter? Do guys do that? This is why I don't write guys. I don't get what is believable and what isn't.

"What did you say to Garrot last night?" asked Poe.  Finn found himself only inches away from Poe's face.  He blinked, a little thrown by how close Poe had gotten to him again without him knowing.  Finn wasn't even sure how the other man did it. Finn wasn't so stuck in his own head that he let people just sneak up on him.  Poe, however, seemed to very often be able to just appear next to him.  Sometimes it was comforting.  Sometimes, like now, it made him feel like it was going to make his heart beat out of his chest. 

"Um, something about thinking about my fellow Stormtroopers as family, and that you, Rey, and Chewbacca were closer to me than any of them despite the fact that I knew you hardly at all," said Finn, with a shrug.  He was concerned he said something wrong at first when Poe threw his head back and laughed, sitting next to Finn and slapping him on the shoulder.

"That was just what our General needed," said Poe with a laugh. "We're off tomorrow to follow the map.  Hopefully our friends are still there, or at least have left us a clue to where to find them."

"So soon?" asked Finn, even as his heads rings with the fear that they won't be there anymore.  Why would Luke and Rey stay on whatever planet they landed on?  It would be insanely dangerous for both of them.  Better to meet and then continue on in something a little less conspicuous than the Millenium Falcon.   

Then again, at this point it might be too late.  So why leave so soon?

"It's important to our mental health," said Poe with a wink. 

"Alright," said Finn slowly, not really getting at what Poe was trying to tell him.  Poe seemed to fall apart at this point.  Laughing.  Finn wasn't sure what to do with that.  Poe was always happy, but this seemed a little excessive.  He watched him in confusion. "Are you alright?"

"Just selling the picture," said Poe, calming down with a shake of his head. Finn just watched his friend, wondering if perhaps he should figure out who his therapist was.  They were supposed to help people who were falling apart right? "I'm not crazy.  Well, no crazier than normal.  Truthfully I'm starting to feel a little tied down at the moment."

"What?  You've been grounded for two days," said Finn. "You've had to have stayed still longer than that."

"Well, yeah, but not lately.  Ever since we've been getting closer to get the map, I've been all over flying place to place," said Poe.  Finn glanced at him sideways.  Letting his body sway a little. "Truthfully the General wanted to ground me for a month.  Not that I think she actually could have."

"So this is just a way to get back into space?" asked Finn.

"And I get to see Luke Skywalker," said Poe.  Finn had to nod in agreement.  That did sound like a great bonus.

"Only if we find him," Finn pointed out.  Unfortunately, there was a very good chance they would just fly everywhere, looking around to find he two Jedi's until the Jedi's revealed themselves. 

"Don't be so negative," said Poe, elbowing Finn hard enough to have the former Stormtrooper flinching. A couple of other men showed up, clapping Poe on the back, one even gave him a quick slap.  All of them saying hello and effectively ending the conversation between Finn and Poe.  Finn sat back and listened to what everyone else was talking about.  He didn't usually join in on conversations.  Poe usually ran them for the most part.  Even when he wasn't telling one of his ridiculous stories, he would sit there smiling and everyone still looked at her from the side. 

Soon the conversation moved into areas that Finn had no interest at all.  He tried not to show his disinterest.  But he didn't have to do much at all.  For the most part he was ignored, and anyway most people just wanted him not to be paying attention.  At least, that's how he felt whenever he met someone's eyes.  Maybe he was reading too much into it, but Finn felt that after a really long life of spending all his time with his helmet on, yes, even while eating, it meant that Finn had to learn how to read the emotions of his fellow Stormtroopers.

Not that being able to tell when people were irritated with him ever did any good.  He'd just used it to know when he should make certain observations about what was going on, and whether he should leave the table or not. 

Here he stuck around.  If he left the table, even to go back to their dorm, then Poe would also probably be expected to follow him.  Plus, Finn was finding that while he didn't like to join in on the conversations, he enjoyed their stories.  Maybe not when they went into politics or even basic semantics of the various jobs, that tended to be a little mind numbing if simply because didn't know what they were talking about, but he loved their stories.  He wished he had some. 

He wanted to make some. 

Poe dragged Finn up the stairs and had him quickly help them both pack.  They didn't need much.  Just a couple of changes of clothes.  After that Poe went to check the ship they were taking.  Finn listened with half an ear as Poe talked about the ship.  Finn knew enough about mechanics to get him by.  Sure, he wasn't a pilot like Finn, or as good at fixing one as Rey, but he could get by well enough.

That night, they met with everyone.  Because everyone was Poe's friend.  So at some point alcohol became a thing.  Finn sipped at his, leaning against the wall to the side.  Smiling at some people who came by him.  No one really stopped to chat, but he didn't feel like he was being avoided.  Instead he was doing most of the avoidance.  Finn had seen his therapist not only lurking around, but also trying to catch his eyes and talk to him.

"Finn?" the former Stormtrooper almost jumped out of his skin. He turned to see the General smiling at him.  Finn found himself shuffling a little.  Sometimes he looked at this woman and could hardly believe she was the princess that he heard about in stories.  She was strong, she had to be to run this entire organization, but there was something very fragile about her.  Maybe it was the lines on her face or the hunch in her shoulders, two physical traits that seemed to be worse than when it started. 

"General," said Finn, automatically straightening.  He forced himself to relax.  He found that people tended to frown at him less and even try to smile when he showed that he was trying to relax in their presence. "How-how can I help you."

The General smiled at him, her shoulders relaxing.

"I was checking in.  You two will be very busy from now on," said the General.  Finn nodded then cleared his throat.

"Yes, though Poe is practically been vibrating out of his skin in anticipation," said Finn with a forced laugh.  It does help to put the General at ease though.  She rocks back on her heels a little, her eyes glazing over as she seems to stare at nothing.

"Yes, he always does feel his best up in the sky," she actually looked up at that point.  Finn automatically looked up, following her gaze.  Of course, she's not actually looking at something.  So Finn stands there like an idiot for a couple of moments, craning his head and looking at nothing because looking down would be like he was admitting he was an idiot by looking down.  Of course, this way he looked like a moron looking up at something that only existed in the General's memories. "Will you be sure to take care of him?"

That gave Finn an excuse to look at her.  Of course the request shocked him so much that he could feel all the muscles bunching uncomfortably in his neck as he turned to look at her.  For the General's part, she just continued to stare up into the air for a couple of seconds.  Finally she sighed, her eyes closing a blink that lasted just a mili-second too long, before she let her head fall so she could smile at Finn again, the lines in her mouth crinkling.

"He's been pushing himself so hard, and we need him in this coming war.  He is valuable not just for his skills as a pilot, but as a trusted friend to those around him," as she said this, the General spread out her arms, making it clear that she was speaking about the wide influence that Poe had over the moral of everyone celebrating their friend before he left. 

Finn looked around the room.  He could hardly believe how much influence one person had over so many people.  Even the most decorated and personable Stormtrooper would not receive this sort of attention.  It wasn't even barred, it just wasn't possible.  His superiors would have seen this sort of attention as dangerous.  Not because the Stormtrooper would get a big head, but because that much attention and love poured into someone so easily used as cannon fodder could easier weaken moral and cause unseemly attachments. 

"Finn!" said Poe, once again, somehow sneaking up behind Finn. The Stormtrooper flinched, but leaned into his friend as Poe pulled Finn toward him.  Finn blinked, pulled cheek to cheek with the other man, feeling Poe's stubble rub against his as Poe laughed and stumbled on his feet. "Come on, you need to hear Zoe's story about this time she got lost in a minefield.  It's hilarious."

"It was traumatizing!" shouted a voice somewhere from behind them.  Finn tried to turn to see who had shouted, but was interrupted by Poe spinning around, pulling Finn's head awkwardly down so he almost tripped over his own feet.  He steadied himself, but never saw the woman as he was pulled along by Poe.  That grip on his hands making his head go somewhere different.

It felt weird.  To just let his mind go again, it was different then the forest.  Here, with so many bodies around him, it felt different.  It felt like he was doing something that would hurt him.  Or that it would lead him to the same situation that had him pointing his gun as a bunch of innocent people got slaughtered.

Finn closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then a draft from the drink that had been put in his hands.  It turned out longer than expected when the people around him cheered and encouraged him to drink, drink, drink.  One woman yelling loud enough to shatter glass.  he didn't finish all of it as some leaked down his neck onto his shirt when Poe gave his arm another pull.  But the cheer spread so thick this time from the people around him that it spilled and infected everyone around him, causing the entire room to feel crowded with one joyous exclamation into the very air.

Finn felt himself lean down as the cheering turned into laughter and then loud babble from before.  Everyone smiling and talking, those around Finn clapping him on the shoulder and one person even getting him another drink and shoving it into his hands.  Finn could feel himself getting tipsy on the ambiance.  He was pretty sure it was too soon for the alcohol to go to his head, but his feet stumbled out from beneath him in a jumbled mess and he couldn't seem to control the smile that threatened to split his face.

Poe pulled at him again, and Finn turned to him, that smile still eating his face.  THey both ended up bowed over, laughter spilling from their lips.  When for a brief moment, Finn realized that despite the fact that Poe had a drink in his hand that was constantly being refilled, the ace pilot breath hadn't smelled of alcohol.

Then people were cheering for him to chug again.  Finn smiled widely and accommodated, the cheer filling his ears, and minds, and pulling him into that camaraderie that surrounded Poe constantly. 

And he couldn't stop smiling. 


	4. After a Part

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to you all. The response to this has been amazing. Christmas dare is what you'd expect: watch the Star Wars Holiday Special and try not to lose all hope in the franchise again.

The person who was pulling at him needed to die.  Finn struck out with his leg, and someone only laughed.  Finn tried to shove the person who now was dragging at his upper body.  He could tell they were trying to say something to him, but he couldn't care less what it could have been.  Instead he grabbed his pillow and then let out a completely unmanly scream as he was dropped from his bed onto the floor. 

Thankfully the fall was much shorter than it should have been.  He only fell maybe two feet instead of the five or six from his top bunk.  He scrambled out of the bedding he was tangled in, only he didn't really succeed and he heard chuckles and groans from the beds around him.  Poe was saying something, but it sounded so far away.  So Finn took in a deep breath, and then let it out in a rush.  He took in another and slowly he moved each muscle, little by little exhaling and inhaling slowly as he worked down his body, using the concentration on his body to wake up his mind.

By the time he surfaced enough to get a proper look around himself, Poe was propping him up against the bed and throwing the covers to one side.  He brought his hand up to his head and started to kneed there.  It was weird.  What was this?  He felt like he was being constantly dragged back into sleep.  His eyes closing, his breath coming out in deep breaths as he pulled in breath after breath that lulled his mind deeper into oblivion.

Once again, there was a sense that someone was talking to him, but the words were hard to grasp as his mind kept trying to shut back down.  Finn shook his head and forced himself to open his eyes.  Poe, it was Poe that was talking to him.  He tried to read his lips, but that was too hard.  He just wanted to fall sideways and bury his head in his arms and sleep. Finn forced himself to try and concentrate on the words, the shape of Poe's mouth as he talked, to open his ears to what was happening around him. 

   "Throw up?" asked Poe.  Finn shook his head.  He could do this.  Though he'd have to ask if at some time last night he'd had to be sedated last night.  Because there was a memory of being dragged into the party.  Of actually having fun, of being dragged into the joy and celebration and of drinking.  But he was pretty sure that the more he was dragged into the general rhythm and celebration of the night, and the more he drank, the more hazy his memory of that time became.  So maybe he had lost some time or control and had to be controlled or something.

"What did you give me?" he asked, taking another deep breath, and pushing himself up to help with the waking process.  "I feel like I'm about to fall back asleep."

Someone groaned in one of the beds.  Finn glanced his way, his eyes still blurry, so he ended up blinking hard a few times before looking back to Poe.  The other man had a curious look on his face.  Like he was concerned, but still relaxed and happy.

"How do you feel?" asked Poe, and there seemed to be a genuine note of curiosity in his tone. "You going to upchuck?"

"Up..?" Finn shook the cobwebs from his head, blinked his eyes, and straightened.  He might not have been on the frontlines and trained as rigorously as other Stormtroopers, but this was just pathetic. 

And embarrassing.

"Sorry, I guess whatever I took must have affected me worse than I thought," said Finn with a forced smile.

"You only drank a stupid amount of alcohol," said Poe with a chuckle. "Actually, I thought I'd be doing more than helping you wake up.  Thought I'd be dealing with one hell of a hangover."

"Hangover?" asked Finn.  One of the men in the beds groaned and looked right at him.

"Are you serious?  You only got a little sleepy," said the man. Finn looked at him, a little concerned about how pale the man looked.  Not sure if he meant to attack him or something similar.

"A little more than a little sleepy?" said Finn, the man shoved his head under pillow and groaned.  Finn looked at Poe. Being that tired was also a liability.  If there had been an emergency, not only wouldn't he have woken up, but his roommates may have been obligated to drag his heavy ass out with them.

"You don't feel like your head is going to crack in half or that your stomach is threatening to burst out of your mouth?" asked Poe.  Finn looked at the other man in horror and shook his head.  What had they given him the other night.

"Fucking Stormtrooper," muttered the man on the bed and then groaned again.  Finn raised an eyebrow and then looked at Poe.  Poe shook his head.

"What did you give me?" asked Finn, following Poe as the other man left the room.  He checked his watch.  It was about midway through the time you could come in for breakfast.  Finn found himself walking almost past Finn, his stomach growling loudly.

"We didn't spike your drink, it that's what you meant," said Poe.  Finn then let her head fall to the side. "It was just good old alcohol."

"And that was supposed to make my head feel like it was about to crack open and my stomach want to jump out my mouth?" asked Finn, not being able to help the incredulous tone that entered words.  Poe smiled wider, his own eyebrow raising. 

"To be completely truthful," said Poe with a chuckle, his hand going to rub the back of his neck. "I didn't expect you to join in like that.  I thought you'd hang around me or the wall the entire night, and maybe finish one drink by the end of the night.  Not be inspired to chug drink after drink."

"Is that why you weren't drinking?" asked Finn.  Finn immediately felt like he had done something wrong when Poe stopped suddenly.  He looked back at his friend who was looking at him, his smile less wide, and his eyebrows furrowed.  Finn shrugged. "I didn't smell any alcohol on your breath.  You were kinda close at some points."

"Huh, that's quite observant of you," said Poe, his gaze shifting to the floor before he turned on his heels and left.  Finn watched Poe for moment before walking beside him again.  He didn't feel like he'd said anything wrong, and Poe didn't look angry.  He looked curious, but maybe Poe was misreading the man's mood.  Maybe his expression was for something else or meant something wrong. 

He'd never been the best at that sort of thing. 

They had a quiet breakfast.  Poe rambled about the trip a little.  Talking about their course and any little mechanical details he thought Finn should be aware of.  Finn listened with half an ear, nodding when he thought he heard something he understood.  It wasn't that he wouldn't be able to do his intended job.  He was pretty good at that.  Not listening to what was said, but still absorbing it in a way that meant he could do what he needed later. 

When Poe started to herd Finn away, a few more people appeared to be around.  Some looked miserable, and Finn wondered if it was those hangovers.  It seemed to be stupid to allow such a substance to be used by soldiers.  It obviously seriously hindered their ability to do their jobs.  And whether the Rebellion was different than the First Order, it still needed workers who could do their jobs well.

Still, a lot of people were there to see them off.  Finn got hugs right along with Finn.  He sent Poe a few confused looks, but only met the gaze of the other man once.  Poe just smiled at him and gaze the General a hug before they were both able to board.  It was intense way to say goodbye, and even Poe seemed to let himself relax a little as they finally got into the cockpit.

"You ready to act as co-pilot?" asked Poe with that same smile of his.

"As much as anyone can be," Finn said.  Poe shook his head.

"I can yap at you until I turn blue," he said. "But I think I'm going to get that same blank look as I've gotten yesterday and this morning."

Finn blushed.  He thought he'd been better at hiding his inattention.

"It's how I've always learned," said Finn.  Which was half true.  He had, after all, been the perfect Stormtrooper in theory, and children didn't wear helmets day in and day out.  So he'd learned quickly how to look attentive but also retain the information while not letting his immediate attention wander elsewhere.  The truth was he really learned better when he was listening to someone lecturing while he was letting his mind wander.  Maybe it was about the connections that he would make.  Some of which were so odd that he wanted to share them.  If he'd had someone to tell, or known how to say it, maybe he would have.

Under the Stormtrooper helmet, he'd been able to just let his mind wander again.  As long as he was listening well enough to respond with the appropriate words or movements.  Not that hard as there weren't many to pick from in the first place.  He must have lost the ability to pretend to actually be listening he had as a kid as it happened then. 

"Sure," said Poe, sounding very skeptical. "But, thankfully for you, I believe that learning is better done while on the job.  Plus, it's not like this is completely new.  We've done this a little, and you were with Rey alone for a while."

"Right," said Finn, not sure if that time actually counted for anything.  It seemed like as soon as they got stabilized that Han Solo had boarded them. 

That made Finn sigh sadly.  Maybe he hadn't known the man for very long, and he certainly hadn't been as connected to him as Rey, but some part of him missed the man that had given him useful if vague advice and seemed to have been able to read him like a book. Finn snorted a little, thinking about how he acted back then.  What had he been thinking?  Of course Han Solo would be able to tell right away that Finn wasn't actually a part of the Resistance.  He had to have know himself, at least a little.  Why else would Finn have said that he was sort of a big deal with the Resistance.  Han Solo might not have been an active figure in that fight, at least not officially, but he had been married to basically the leader of the group.

Just from the type of person Finn was, Han Solo would have known better. 

"Hey," said Poe, sitting back as they went into Lightspeed.  Finn sat back, blinking a little, not realizing they had gotten so far.  Had he helped?  That was horrible.  He couldn't let his mind wander like this.  This was how it started in the beginning, or how it had always been when he was a Stormtrooper.  He would let his mind wander and let his body do what it wanted and next he would know, someone was holding his hand and leading him to hide from another monster they had picked up at from another illegally picked up ship. 

He couldn't let that happen.  He wasn't just a mindless drone now.  He could be his own person.  He could figure out who he exactly was without just doing what other people wanted him to do.

"Finn?" asked Poe.  Finn silently swore at himself shaking his head.

"I'm sorry," said Finn, forcing a smile to match Poe's usual one.  Though the other man was looking at him in confusion. "I guess I'm just still tired after last night."

Finn forced a smile, and Poe smiled in a way that made Finn think the other man was humoring his excuses.

"It'll be alright Finn.  I promise.  We'll find Rey.  You'll see her again," said Poe, reaching out and squeezing Finn's hand.  The man pulled his hand back to look over the controls and Finn had to fight the impulse to reach out. To be grounded by that touch.  To have all his focus on that one person.  Instead he turned to his controls.  He could do this.  He would be in the moment from now on.  He wouldn't let his actions become automatic.  He would be the people in the legend.  In control of his destiny.  In control of his actions, and he would do the right thing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is for everyone who drank too much or who is going to drink too much. Now you have someone to hate. Still, Finn had to have some good thing come from being a Stormtrooper right?


	5. An Old Friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. I took a trip and got sick. Now I'm sick but back home. So here is the next installment.

It seemed like it was only moments before they touched down on the planet where Rey had been sent by the map to find Luke Skywalker.  Finn, despite telling Poe that he was fine, basically pushed his way out.  The metal not giving out under his hand as he tried to push his way out onto the planet and basically squeezed his way out onto land.  Finn laughed at him the whole time, but didn't comment. 

Finn glanced to the side.  There, a fuzzy Chewbacca emerging from her innards, was the Millennium Falcon.  They'd found the ship easy enough, as if Rey and Chewbacca had known someone would  not only follow them, but also wanted to be found.  Like they knew it would be a friend.  Which didn't stop Chewbacca from carrying a whole lot of weapons strapped to various parts of his body.

Poe laughed, and Finn only glanced at him for a second before he heard something crashing his way.  He turned in time to get a face full of Wookie as he was crushed against the things fur, muscles, and weaponry.  Poe laughed and hugged them both.  The chest of the man seemed to bump against him, and Finn elbowed the man, though he was gentler getting out of the Wookies arms.  Chewbacca made some agreeable noise, obviously happy to see them, clapping them on the back.

He then started to head up the nearby hill.  The way was rough and steep.  Signs that someone, some village of people, had once lived in these ruins.  Though it was hard to tell from a quick glance if the village had been recently and hastily moved, or if it had happened a long time ago. 

It didn't matter, and some part of his mind heard the crunch as he destroyed it under his feet.  He glanced behind him to see Poe following at a bit of a distance, though it looked as if Chewie was staying by the ships.  Finn wondered if he should go talk to him for a second, before shaking his head and going even faster up the side of the island.  It really was quite a ways, and Finn wasn't even sure where he was going.  How would he know if he and Poe needed to move on?  Would she have even thought to give them a clue?  Would either of them dared.

Had Luke still been at the island when she left?  Had it been too long?  Finn couldn't help but see Han Solo's death at the moment.  A legend in his own right.  A great man who did what seemed impossible.  Who had helped shape the universe they knew today.  Killed.

By his own son if, well, if anyone was to be believed. 

Finn shook his head.  He would not worry about this now.  It was either too late or too soon.  First they needed to follow the map.  The map was all they had at the moment.  Plus, Chewbacca was waiting for them at the bottom.  If there was nothing to find, then hopefully he would know and would have stopped them from going up. 

By the time Finn finally crested the top of the hill he almost wished that he was stuck in his Stormtrooper mindset because he almost thought himself back into the ship a few times.  It was ridiculous.  They needed to know for sure. 

Finn glanced around, his eyes darting from side to see, his heart sinking when he didn't see anything.  Poe slapped his shoulder, and Finn glanced over at him. Poe titled his head, his eyes scanned the area.  With a deep breath, Finn forced himself to slow down.  So at the first sign of trouble he was ready to flee.  He was just digging himself deeper by letting his thoughts spiral out of control like this.  Instead Finn took in another deep breath, letting his eyes close, and very slowly taking a step forward.

He opened his eyes when he almost tripped over a rock, sending Poe an irritated glance when the man laughed at him.  Poe just shrugged and then laughed again when Finn tripped again.  Finn turned his attention forward.  Maybe he'd been held back from combat so long because he was an utter klutz and unable to follow through on his ability to trip on even the smallest of environments.

Then they got to where there was a four foot sheer drop to where Rey was sitting there with an older man.  She was looking right at him, and after staring at him for a minute she was up on her feet.  Finn smiled, jumping down and dragging her into a hug.  They stayed together for a blissful second as Finn simply took in a deep breath, smelling the hard musk that surrounded her, making him wonder how she always looked so fresh when it always smelled like she only used hard soap, and only used it sparingly and probably mostly on what was often exposed to the elements.  Of course, there was another smell there, a fresher one, a sort of smell you got from standing in the rain and letting your clothes dry on you.

Then, of course, Rey pushed him away, looking him up and down and then squeaking a little when Poe forced her into a hug.  She made an irritated noise, glancing at him more in confusion, and when he let her go a few seconds later she patted him on the arm while looking over at Finn.

"This is Poe," said Finn.

Rey continued to look at him and then shook her head.

"I know who he is," she said and gave the pilot a nod. "Why are you two here."

The words sounded harsh and Finn flinched.  Rey let out an irritated sigh, her body weight shifting as she gripped at her arm where her weapon usually was.  It was oddly absent.

"Well, we should get going," said an elderly male voice.  Finn turned to him the same time as everyone else.  He'd forgotten about him for a second.  Happy to have his friend back with him.  Glad that she had stayed even with all the danger that entailed. 

Then he realized who this had to be.  He turned on Rey, mouth going a little slack as he stared at her.  She looked back at him, her expression one of irritation.  Then she looked over at Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi.

"What do you mean leave?" she asked, her tone a little quick and a little irritated.  The old man, Skywalker, smiled at her.  His body relaxed as he shook his head and chuckled.

"Off this rock," he said, a slight teasing tone to his words. "As you asked ."

"When I first found you," said Rey with a roll of her eyes.

"That wasn't exactly what remember you saying first," said Luke. "I remember.."

"Yes, thank you, what is important is that we should have left days ago," said Rey, then she took a deep breath in and then let it go in a deep breath.  She shook her head. "Never mind, when are we leaving?"

"I have all I need in that bag.  I thought you had everything you needed on the ship," said Skywalker casually.

"The Millennium is too conspicuous," said Rey with a sigh.  Though it looked like it took everything in her to say it.  Finn knew that even if she had called the thing junk when they first met, she still had learned to love it. Especially after they found exactly what that ship was to history. 

"Yes, I believe the Millennium Falcon will be the perfect ship to take to our next destination," said Skywalker, heading back down the hill.  Finn followed by Rey's side, glancing at her.  She was tense, her shoulders held back, and a glare piercing into the sky in front of her. Finn glanced between her and Skywalker.  Where Rey looked like she attached a metal rod to her back, Skywalker walked a little hunched.  Where Rey's mouth was quirked down, Skywalker's mouth was slightly turned up.  Rey looked like she was about to shove Skywalker down the hill.  Skywalker looked like he wanted to play a joke on someone.

"So, I'm Poe," said Poe, getting front of Skywalker and giving the man a wide smile.  Skywalker glanced at him, his smile turning into a quirk of his eyebrow. Finn gave Poe an odd look.  Why would Luke Skywalker have to introduce himself to them.

"And I'm Luke," said the old man. "I've been waiting for you."

"Waiting?" asked Poe, then glanced at Rey. "But I'm not force sensitive." Then Poe looked to Finn.  Finn shook his head.

"I'm not or I wouldn't have been taken as a Stormtrooper," said Finn. Then Skywalker... Luke made a couple of clicking noises with his tongue.

"How is that with the Jedi dead," said Luke with a shake of his head. "Old ideas still persist."

"Are you saying that I'm force sensitive?" asked Poe. "Because I've gone through all the tests, and I don't have the right count of..."

Luke waved away Poe's words like they were gnats.

"We will talk about this later, but right now I only wish to get to know my two new disciples.  I think the ride to our new destination will do nicely for this sort of thing," said Luke.  Poe looked over at Rey.  The girl rolled her eyes and looked to the side with a pout and a shrug.  Obviously she had been dealing a while with Luke not acting like the sensible person she expected him to.  Instead he was being weird, in an old, I know better than you, but because I'm old I'm going to go about it the way that will confuse you the most.

Oddly enough, Finn had run into that before.

Still, he wasn't connected to the force.  He'd talked to his therapist about that a little.  Enough to confirm to her he wasn't, for her to realize that he wanted it, for her confirm he had no connections, and for him to avoid any and all conversation on the matter because there was a whole lot else that was wrong with his life than his disappointment of not being force sensitive.

"I see I'll have as much difficulty with you two as I've had with Rey," said Luke with a sigh. Which made Rey huff and her fists clench together so hard, Finn thought she might break the skin on her hands.  He reached out and touched her hand just a touch.  Rey spun on him, the group stopping with them. Luke turned, watching with hooded eyes.  Finn found himself blushing, especially as Rey sent her that glare. 

Still, her hands were folded, her fingers still digging into her hand.  Leaning over, Finn listened to the constant chatter that filled the island.  As abandoned as it seemed, wildlife still flourished.  He reached out and casually took her hands in his.  She made as if to remove it with at same force as hard as she had when they were running from the First Order.  But Luke made a coughing sound, and that caught her attention. 

Finn had to say he was a little impressed with the look of what seemed to be pure loathing that she sent his way.

But she didn't move, actually no, she actually seemed to push her hands into his a bit. He turned her hand over, and then started to message the fingers digging into her skin so harshly.  That seemed to concern him.  They looked at each other, and then Rey sighed and her hands relaxed.  She hadn't broken the skin, but she did have angry looking crescents in her palms.

"It will be easier with friends," said Luke with a significant look at Rey.  Rey turned a bright red and then started to storm down toward the ship.

"I think that you've upset our Rey," said Poe with that smile directed at Luke.

"She wants me to be more conventional," said Luke, his steps almost exaggeratedly slow.  He shook his head a little.  Finn stayed a step behind the old man.  He had a feeling that even though he'd just found her, Rey needed her space. "Of course, they probably would have said she's too old."

"Too old?" asked Finn.  Luke sighed, and then he looked over at Finn and smiled, beckoning him to stand beside him.

"An old belief I don't follow anymore," said Luke, he slung his arm over Finn, leaning his weight against the former Stormtrooper. "Now, I think it would be a good time to get to know one another."

Somehow this sounded very ominous. 


	6. What is Good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me preface this by breaking one of my rules by telling you what you're reading is not a love triangle. Yes I know what Rey is doing. Yes it will be explained later. No she does not want Finn that way, though yes, you could make the argument she is being possessive. But I repeat. This is not a love triangle, those drive me up a wall.

The questions he asked were really boring.  Finn couldn't help but wonder if the Jedi was trying to make him uncomfortable on purpose for some reason.  Luke yelled their coordination's to Rey.  Luke then guided Poe and Finn to the back of the, though it was clear that Poe desperately wanted to go into the cockpit and at least take a proper look around it.  Finn was mildly surprised the man hadn't already, but he'd been sent out on his mission almost as soon as he came back.  Plus, it wasn't like Rey had stuck around long after what had happened.  To eager to get to Luke.

Then BB-8 came on board, a sort of sad, angry whine to him as he searched out Poe.  Finn watched, never good with language, as Poe apologize to his old friend for almost leaving him behind but also trying to explain why they couldn't take the second ship, but since the New Republic had been destroyed, how it wasn't a good idea to leave the ship alone. 

Of course, they did end up just leaving it, and Finn found himself drawn away from all his friends.  The conversation mundane, but even though the ship was needed, an asset not to be lost, it was left there while they went up and away. 

"Here, this will serve," said Luke, sitting down, practically dragging Finn down with him.  Finn sat down, but was able to get a foot or so away from the old man by sitting on a different, overly indulgent chair.  Luke chuckled, throwing his hands behind his head like he was a boy and giving a good look around. "The memories this brings back."

Luke closed his eyes and let his head lean against the metal.  Finn watched him, still trying to figure out the Jedi.  Han Solo, when he first met him, was a puzzle, but he always had been one.  The stories about him and what he was bounced around space and time and muzzled everything into a confusing ball that Rey's and his confusing first guesses about him being a Smuggler and a War Hero tied up into the enigma that was what he'd been taught about those lowlife Rebels and their major players. 

What had Luke felt in the force when Han Solo was killed.  Had the man felt it, had he known that it was the son that killed Han Solo?  Did it add to the reason he'd hid away in the first place?  Or had it been what resolved him to train not only Rey, but also Finn and Poe. 

"So, you were a Stormtrooper," said Luke, before shaking his head and putting his feet up on the table. "How many innocents did you kill before your conscience kicked in?"

Finn felt his entire body tense at those words. No one had asked him that.  He had thought like he heard it every time they talked to him, any time that him being a Stormtrooper was either talked to in some way to him, around him, or even if the subject was obviously avoided.  Sure, Finn had betrayed the First Order after his first official mission, but what did that mean at the end of the day?

"None," he said then paused and took a deep breath in. "At least not directly."

"Not directly?" asked Luke, leaning forward a little, his head falling slightly to the side.  Finn sighed and let his head fall into his hands.  It was something that made his entire head ache.  Because the First Order filled his head with lies, with inexcusable excuses, with horrible repeating patterns of how to follow the order given.  To never question.  But it also gave him truths in that horrible, confused spell.  In it, he could hear the echoes of how inaction was worst in many ways than going against orders.  Going against orders was still an action, a follow through to the truth.  In action, that was standing by and letting that horribleness drag into eternity.

"Ah, I see," said Luke.  Finn glanced at Luke.  Had the older man seen into his head?  He'd heard whispers about Jedi.  They didn't exist anymore, no one but Kylo Ren, and it seemed to suite the man and his master to not teach their soldiers anything that might be useful against one.  Maybe to keep up their mysterious edge, maybe they were afraid that information would be used against them.  So all Finn knew about the Force was what little he'd picked up the last few days.  And that told him that the Force would not help him turn off shields. "Then you won't be using weapons anymore."

"What?" asked Finn.  He was going to be forced into inaction. "But we're at war."

"There is always a war," said Luke with a wave of his hand. "It's the nature of the Force."

"I have to be able to fight.  I'm still on their wanted list," said Finn. "They'll be coming after us soon.  It won't be long until they have the rest of the map now that people have seen it, and then it won't be hard to follow our path from there."

"And why will you be fighting them?" asked Luke with a wave of his hand.

"Because they're going to be shooting at me!" Finn practically shouted.  Then he took in a deep breath and forced himself to sit back in his chair.  Luke wasn't actually his Master, and even if he was, Finn had disregarded stupid orders before.

"A good enough reason," said Luke with a smile and a nod. "For most."

Finn snorted.  Could this man really be for real? "For now, FN-2187, just think about why you defected."

"Because what we were doing was wrong," snapped Finn.

"Why was it wrong?" asked Luke with a raised eyebrow.  Finn's mouth dropped a little as he stared at him.  What had been right about what they had been doing?  The blood, the screaming, the death.

"They screamed as they died.  Innocent and we wounded them up and shoot them," said Finn, his hands shaking as he remembered the blood bath.  As he remembered how they all clustered together and how their bodies had fallen, the blood and heat that burned into his body.  The dying breath of those around him.

"Innocents with guns," said Luke absently. A shiver went down Finn's spine.  That was it, the man had to be reading his mind.  Finn glared at Luke, wishing he could feel the man there so he could push him out of his mind as quickly as possible. "Have you killed Stormtroopers?"

"Yes," said Finn.  The feeling of the triggers under his finger sending out shots as he and Poe were escaping, that first blast that sent those men back.  His first real belief that he could escape.  That with this man, he could jump into systems so far away, and then go further and further, until he forgot, until they were nothing but a memory and his purpose could move from being with people so angry and hostile, to something of a life.  Maybe something that had more moments of clarity.  Maybe find beauty.

"And these Stormtroopers, they were different from the people on the planet with guns that you had gone to that snapped you out of your head?" asked Luke, like that wasn't obvious.  They had invaded that place looking for a map.  They had gone to attack.  Those people had been defending themselves. "Those men who were brainwashed.  Who never had a chance to choose.  They deserved death, while the people in the village defending and killing to keep that map a secret until the time I asked it to be shared, who had a choice in how they lived their lives, they were the only victims."

Finn stared at Luke.  Because the answer was yes.

"Because what the Rebels were doing was right," said Finn.

"The First Order believes what they are doing is right too," said Luke.

"What they're doing is wrong," said Finn angrily.

"Why?" asked Luke urgently. "What makes it right or wrong?"

Silence then stretched between them.  Finn opened his mouth to explain, only for his mouth to snap shut.  The reason rested on his tongue, but what was it?  What could he say in the end?  Finn shook his head.  He'd explained it right? And he knew it was right.  He just couldn't find the words.

"The First Order uses fear to control its people," said Poe, coming and sitting in the seat next to Finn, throwing his arm so it rested on Finn's shoulder.  Finn felt himself relax, his breath coming out in a rush.  Luke glanced between the two of them, his smile twisting into something different before he turned and started pressing buttons on a consol that Finn hadn't noticed before.  There was a whirl and by the corner what looked like a drink was being made. "It destroys without thought to life, reacting in anger to anything that it sees as a threat to its power.  It sees kindness and mercy as something that corrupts people instead of saving them."

"The First Order?" asked Rey, walking in. "It tears family apart.  It tells people what to believe and then puts a gun to their head or just changes them so they'll blindly follow whatever it tells them, and then it eats itself from the inside out, everyone fighting and killing to make their ways to the top.  Just to start."

Finn nodded.  Of course, that's what he had meant.  There was just so much wrong with the First Order that he hadn't been able to pick that one thing and stick to it.  All that had circled in his head was that night, were his actions, it had crept into him the way it would when he was recovering, before Poe, as it wormed itself into his head and replayed the blood, the screams, the fire, the orders.  over and over again, as his head spun and spun and the wrongness of it all ate at his mind until his very skin felt like it would crawl from his body and his heart would collapse into itself.

Then Finn met Luke's eyes as Rey moved away from him, the cup of liquid in his hands, steaming a little as he raised his eyes at Finn. 

The conversation wasn't over.  But for some reason it wouldn't continue in front of the others. 

"Finn will not be using his weapons unless I ask him to from now on," said Luke, confident.  Finn felt his face heat with a blush, and leaned in, ready to take even a Jedi to task over this.  But the words "trusts me" bounced in his head, like he had no brain, no thoughts of his own, just an empty space for Luke to talk into.

"Is that part of his training?" asked Rey, and in a surprising move sat on Finn.  Finn bounced a little, tensing, and suddenly worried about where everything in his body was.  Rey had made no move to fit herself comfortably against him.  She sat there, as if he were the chair, her body straight and her eyes trained on Luke.  The only person she acknowledged as he did this was Poe, whose arm she pushed away. "Like how you told me that I could only use the light saber to fight unless you told me differently."

"Am I going to get a restriction?" asked Poe, his forced hitching a little, and then his smile actually falling as he looked at Luke.  Finn looked up at Rey, she looked back at him.  Then she turned and glared at Poe.  Finn took a moment to glance at Rey.  She was getting comfortable, pulling out a pad and hitting the screen like it wasn't a delicate piece of equipment.  She then paused.

"This is alright, right?  This is something that makes you happy?" asked Rey, leaning in to look deep into Finn's eyes.  Finn was pretty sure he was able to burst from all his blood going to his head. He nodded frantically, and she smiled.  Bringing her arms around him to hug him quickly before going back to her work. "So, Luke, what's so important about this planet?"

The way Rey asked was flat.  No, not flat, maybe, trying to sound bored but was really irritated.  Like a Stormtrooper that was pushed past their limits just a little too far by a commander, and was about to just collapse.

"From my studies, I have found it to be the place where Jedi went to recieve the crystal to go in their light sabers," said Luke with a chuckle. Finn and Poe looked at the man, their mouths hanging open again, BB-8 made an appreciative noise, and even Chewie had a little trill.  Rey just snorted.

"Because that planet won't have a target on it," she snapped, but she didn't go to change their course.  She just sat on Finn, and eventually they all were listening to Poe and Chewie tell their stories.  It was a little hard for Finn to understand Chewie's.  Alright, impossible, but Poe's narration helped, and they were the ones that really got Rey to loosen up, even as she pretended to still be working. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear, this chapter. The last one ended on that note and then Luke wanted to walk about nothing important, which I refused to write because I'm trying to keep these chapters around two thousand words long and he was being boring. Then suddenly I was like, oh, so that's what I was building too, okay, good job subconscious knowing when I'm setting up an awkward situation. And good job hand letting me write it while my working brain was taking a nap.


	7. Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my version of Luke is apparently a little bit of a a'hole. Not much going on, but more for those of you with hand holding fetish.

It was a practical blizzard where they ended up landing.  Finn ended up in the front behind Chewie, listening as Rey swore herself into a tizzy.  It was, rather a lot.  It wasn't that Rey was reserved, she had run him down and beaten him to the ground the first time they met, it was that she was usually very concise in her actions.  Hit Finn to the ground, accuse him of stealing, show droid.  Every action was concise, with as few unnecessary movements and words as necessary. 

This is completely different.  While Rey's actions are still as few and as useful as possible, she doesn't even turn to glare at Luke as he relaxes behind her, her words spill out without any type of filter.  She swears, she yells, and somehow Chewie still gets what he is supposed to do, though he makes a couple of sounds in his language that seem to be trying to calm Rey down.  The entire situation is a little surreal.  Fin supposed he really should stop assuming he knew anything about Rey.  He knew her for what?  A day.  Maybe less.

But this just didn't seem like the woman he'd met. She was too angry, the very waif of it infecting the entire room to the point that Poe had fled to the back with BB-8.  Finn was simply transfixed, because Rey had the whole at peace with herself thing going on before she met Luke.  She had turmoil, but she always considered, always smiled wide before frowning in thought, in reflection.  She had her moments in her that were reckless, but this seemed quite excessive. 

For one thing, Finn hasn't ever heard all those curse words strung together like that.  And he's trying to figure out if she's just stringing together crude words for impact, or if she's trying to create crude pictures in his head. They're crude sure, but in a very sort of confused way.  A sort of  'I'm pretty sure no one could do that ever' sort of way.

They landed eventually, not after being knocked around like they were under fire again, and Rey stares out at nothing for a bit, her mouth now closed into a hard line as she stared hard into the storm where snow is whipped into such a frenzy that nothing else is visible.  Then Rey is moving, standing, her nostrils flaring as she stalks out of the cockpit and then apparently out of the Millennium Falcon, Chewie at her heels looking a little cowed. 

"I didn't know she could be so..." Finn fishes for the right word.  It's there, hidden in layers of other words that are easier to come to mind, but don't seem to fit the whatever the hell that was that had just happened before him.  Luke is chuckling under his breath, that smile of his having never left as Rey cursed him out but followed the coordinated that he gave her as well as she could considering the weather. "Disorganized."

Finn winced, not the right one, but better than 'vocal', 'angry', 'pissed off' which had been the first words to spring to his mind.  Not that they weren't appropriate in some ways.  Anger definitely played a role in that little episode, so that 'disorganized' definitely was not a strong enough word for her attitude, but the others didn't encapsulate what made the situation stand out to Finn as being odd. 

"Yes, it took quite a while to get her to this point," said Luke with a chuckle.  Finn looked at him in shock.  The Jedi's were all about suppressing their emotions right?  That had always been the joke.  Not one that Finn remembered hearing about, but the fact that the Dark Side of the force used emotion, used anger, it was frightening, but also comical.  Little stories of Kylo Ren basically having hissy fits against stationary machines had circled around.  Like a child having a tantrum.  Of course, the stories were always tinged with fear.  No one wanted to be the one that witnessed it, not really, because he was likely then to attack those closest to him in those fits.

"You want her angry?" asked Finn. 

"She has a natural grace about her, the ability to look inside herself and see the moment for what it is, except it, and move past it," said Luke.

"And that's not what Jedi on the light side do?" asked Finn, his tone as confused as he was.  Luke chuckled again.

"It's exactly the sort of balance a Jedi of the Light Side needs," said Luke, and then smiled over at Finn, his gaze sweeping over the former Stormtrooper.  Finn just continued to look at the old man in confusion.  Finally Luke sighed and shook his head. Looking back to where Rey had left, a frown crossing his face. "Don't try, just do.  Let them go.  Too old.  In the end the Jedi were so restrictive, had lost the ability for even those that knew how to live in the moment, to let the past roll off them, forgot how to teach it, to nurture it truly in the hearts of their in those they trained.  It became repression.  It became not caring."

Luke started to walk out, and Finn followed. "Rey needs to be pushed. She is used to just holding things in until it falls apart.  She will push away the facts that are too hard to confronts and then run when confronted with hard truth.  When she finds her ability to use the force, she exercises the power without thought of reflection on what she is inflicting on those around her."

"Are you talking about when she was captured?  Of course she used her Jedi powers to get free," said Finn in confusion.

"Ah, but when we spoke together she kept stuttering her reasons, how it felt. How right the power was, how she just needed to relax, how she found the Stormtroopers mind, and then how she could do it again.  And then she thought about what she would have done to you when accusing you of being a thief.  What words she would have whispered in your ear and how everything she could have convinced you, you wanted to do to yourself after getting back Poe's jacket," said Luke.  Finn thought about this a second before shaking his head.

"No, she might have convinced me to tell her the truth, maybe been able to stop me without knocking me flat on my back," said Finn.  Luke chuckled, though it sounded rather humorless. "Is... Are you pulling the whole 'you don't know yourself thing with her too?'"

Luke turned on him, his look not amused, but not angry either.  He had one eyebrow quirked.

"No, her anger is currently directed inward," said Luke.

"It didn't look inward to me," said Finn deadpan.  The smirk twisted Luke's face again, and he hit something that had the ship groaning and opening itself to the blizzard outside.

"That is something she is to learn," he said, and then disappeared down the ramp.  This man was odd.  Finn really had no idea what to make of him.  What he said made less sense than Finn had expected, and Finn hadn't been expecting much.  Stories he'd heard whispered in the darkest parts of the garbage compactors.  Always from the soldiers with half a brain, raised y the First Order, but not brainwashed like Stormtroopers, but foolish enough to talk and wax tales with the Stormtroopers assigned in their stations. 

"Are we heading out?" asked Poe, making Finn jump as the man had once again snuck up on him again.  Then Finn realized that Luke was no longer in sight.  He sighed.  Really, this whole not paying attention thing was getting ridiculous.

"Everyone else has," said Finn, but his feet were still firmly planted on the metal rail, not heading down.  Snow already blew in small flurries, coating the metal in a fine mist, and the chill ate right to his bones.  Finn shivered, arms raising up so that he was basically hugging himself as he watched the outside world. 

Poe chuckled under his breath.

"Yeah, that would be a good assessment," said Poe, Finn glanced over to see the pilot was jumping on his toes a little, huffing out breaths that clouded before his face.  Poe turned and grabbed Finn's hand.  Finn, as always, followed easily at the touch, going back into the Millennium Falcon without question.  BB-8 made little whirling sounds, circling them once and then heading out into the raging storm. "I think it would be better if at least some of us were prepared."

That statement confused Finn until the other man pulled him to a place with quite a few chests and closets and started to remove the heavier gear meant for cold weather.  Finn took what Poe gave him gratefully and started putting it over his other clothes.  Then while Poe looked for something suitable for Luke, Finn started to look for something to put together for Rey.  There wasn't that much in the way of gear, but Finn found some warmer heating blankets and a jacket meant to help keep clothes warm while quashed in between.

When Poe finally nodded, Finn was the one to take the man's hand.

"Well, I was wondering when you'd take the initiative," teased Poe.  Finn found himself blushing and hit the other man with his shoulder.  Poe leaned in dramatically before leaning away and cackling to himself.  They then headed outside, all the while their hands wound around each other.  It was a good thing too.  Poe had apparently sent BB-8 ahead of them so the robot could find their friends in this windstorm and was using a sort of homing device to then track his friend down. 

Hopefully the little guy had found and them and wasn't hopelessly lost.

Still, with how hard the wind blew, and the icy ground combined with what were only a little warmer boots, meant that Finn, at least, kept getting pushed by the wind, actually forced to go on one knee a couple of times.  Threw it all, he kept a firm grip on Poe, and Poe's grip never lessened, only became tighter and tighter until Finn was almost afraid the other man was going to break his fingers. 

They finally broke through to a cave.  There Rey was looking over the walls of ice.  Her hands touching it softly, the thin gloves tracing patterns in the ice.  She glanced over, but the frown seemed to have left her.  She walked motioned to Finn, and he walked over to her, towing Poe with him, as the other man had stopped to congratulate BB-8 on finding everyone.  He made a little bit of a coughing sound and twisted his hands a little in Finn's hand. 

"This is where the Jedi before us got the crystals for the light sabers," she said. This time Finn followed her gaze, then he frowned and looked at her in confusion.  Luke came to stand beside them. 

"Tomorrow, when the sun shines in the sky, for a brief time, the ice will melt and the way will be open.  The three of you will enter, and the force will guide you to where your crystal resides," said Luke.  Finn glanced at the old man.

"But Finn and I don't feel the force," said Poe. "Unless Rey is supposed to lead us."

Luke shrugged. "Perhaps that is what we will find." Everyone again turned to look at the old man. "This is an experiment.  In truth, all three of you are much too old. And two of you do not have the connection to the force that will allow you to be traditional Jedi's.  However, if anything, the past shows us that the narrow view of what a Jedi was and what they did for the universe was too confined.  In my research this has been a place where new Jedi's were tested on if they were able to become Jedi.  Where Jedi finished their training.  In the end where young Jedi's proved their knowledge and started the next leg on their journeys."

Finn watched Luke, his shoulders falling.  The man was... lost.  That was the only thing that Finn could think.  In the end Luke's training in the old ways had failed and because of that his best friend's son had turned his back on the Light Side and in the end, killed his father.  So perhaps that was why he wasn't acting normal, wasn't training just the one person who would be a Jedi.

Then again, Finn could be wrong.  he sighed, lifting his free hand to his forehead when Poe squeezed his hand.  He looked over and the other man quirked an eyebrow, and then squeezed his hand again.  Poe squeezed back, a blush on his face.  He reached out, not taking Rey's hand, but clasping her shoulder.  She jumped a little, looking back at him, from his hands then to his face.  She then let a small smile grace her lips, reached over, and squeezed his fingers lightly before letting go and looking at the wall of ice.

They would do this together, and no matter the outcome, they would be stronger for it. 


	8. Freezing

Eventually they moved away from the wall.  Well, Finn and Poe did.  Finn tried to convince Rey to come over, but was called away from Luke after Rey shook her head.  Instead Finn settled on watching her.  It was like the woman had gone into a trance.  She let her fingers trace along the ice with a gentle hand as if she could make the wall break by just pushing at it. 

There was a nervous energy to the entire camp.  Chewie had set up a fire, pulling out material to create fire even in the most barren of areas.  Chewie then huddled as close to the fire as possible, staring into the fire, his eyes going a little fuzzy as he stared into the fire.  Finn watched the Wookie carefully.  He had just lost his best friend.  If stories were to be believed, than he had been at Han Solo's side since before the war.  Now he was left with the man's ship on another adventure with Jedi's and young people who had only known his friend from a brief meeting and overblown stories. 

The Wookie leaned forward and cuddled close to the fire.  Finn remembered those hands coming at him, how his ministrations had caused the Wookie to attack at him, almost killing him as he reacted to the hurt Finn caused when the former Stormtrooper had been trying to heal.  His steps were slow, Finn not sure if he would actually help, but then he walked forward more quickly.  Chewie glanced over at him.  The former Stormtrooper took a deep breath in, yawned, and stared into the fire as he sat next to Chewbacca.  The Wookie watched Finn, his body tensing a little, before he slowly relaxed again.

Good, that was done.  Admittedly the easiest part of a plan that Finn hadn't thought through entirely.  Finn glanced up through her eyelashes, the fire really very captivating.  Luke and Poe sat close together talking just loud enough that Finn could catch a few words here and there.  At first Finn thought they were also watching Rey try to feel her crystal through the very ice. 

Then he realized that their gazes were looking around the entire ice covered cave.  Their words starting somewhere about the structure itself.  It moved on from how safe an area like this could be to how this place was built, and then on to the history.  Finn listened with half an ear, something about the place starting as an area where those with the force were drawn to.  That many found themselves venturing inside, and those with the most mental and physical strength, combined with what was believed to be the most connection to the force, were the ones that made it out. 

The power of the crystals were then a sort of confirmation of their ability, worn to show their higher ability and status within their groups.   Not long after that, one woman who made it through had an idea.  Many people were against it.  Working in the force had been very "heady".  Fighting was considered crass, so creating a weapon for fighting from the crystals they won showing how far they had come in their studies and reflection of the force.

Basically Luke was expanding on the quick overview that he had given them beforehand.  Finn sighed, his eyes fluttering a little before he looked over at Rey.  She was had stopped touching, and was now sitting with her back to them as she stared up at the ice.

Chewie then made a sound, a rumbling that went through Finn's entire body and dragged his attention to the Wookie.  Thankfully Chewbacca did not look irritated, though Finn couldn't parse out in his mind why he should be afraid of the other.  Chewie then made a few quick sounds, and Finn felt his brow furrow.  Maybe he should see if there was any way he could take a few classes on language.  The Wookie patted Finn's head with a heavy hand, little nails briefly digging onto his head, though not in an aggressive way. 

Still, Finn's eyes started to close.  It was just that Luke's voice was lulling, the information coming so briefly that it felt like nothing.  Information without something to connect to on any sort of emotional level. 

Something heavy then was wrapped around Finn.  The former Stormtrooper looked over at where the heavy blanket was coming from.  Rey rolled her eyes at him and then with a huff gave him a smile.  Finn smiled back at her, and watched as she turned on her heels and walked away again.  It was then that Finn was manhandled a little.  His body readjusted.  Finn heard Luke tease Chewie that the Wookie was just getting more of the blanket to himself.

It was then that Finn realized that his plan had somehow worked without him actually having to try anything.  He was cuddled against Chewbacca, and while Finn wasn't sure if this would help the Wookie, his leaning and sleeping against the Wookie was helping Chewie with his grief, Finn also wasn't being overly clingy as the Wookie was moving Finn so the former Stormtrooper was basically in the others lap. 

In that knowledge, Finn looked around the area.  His eyes caught with Poe, his slow blink catching how the other rolled his eyes and then mouthed something at Finn that Finn's mind was too sluggish to work out what he was trying to say.  He then looked toward Rey, but she was looking way. 

It wasn't long after that, that Finn found himself drifting off to sleep.

He woke up a little later, to realize that he'd been bundled up into the middle of a little sleeping bag sharing body heat pile with everyone else.  Finn was still tired, so it took him a moment to realize what had woke him.  While almost everyone was curled into their little puddle, even BB-8 was resting near the rest of them.  But then, as he shakily pushed himself up on still exhausted limbs.  He looked around himself, and realized Rey was missing.  He then saw that there was her form, still sitting in that strong back position, still seeming to stare at the ice. 

With a groan, Finn forced himself to stand, shivering as his entire body shook as he forced it out of the warm cocoon it had been in.  He then stumbled over Poe's body, and then over the few feet of ice to where Rey was sitting. 

Finn placed his hands on her shoulders, as watched in amazement as her entire body did a whole shake.  Her eyes blinked as she looked over at him, a small frown on her lips.

"Come on, you're going to freeze," said Finn.  He then sighed as Rey shifted uncomfortably.  Really, did she have to be so stubborn. "You're going to need to be at your best in there.  You heard some of what was going to happen in there right?  We need to be at our best strength and clearest mind."

"I heard more than you did," said Rey, though her words were a little slurred, thick as she blinked quickly at Finn, her eyes squinting as she tried to fight her own lethargy.  Finn rolled his eyes, reached down and circled his hands around Rey's fingers.  She glared at him, her lips pursed, probably ready to yell at him for taking her hands again.  Finn didn't let her start talking and pulled her up as hard as he could, making her stumble up into his arms and stopping her complaints.  He then switched how he was touching her, him behind her as he led her over to the pile and helping settle her down near Chewie. 

Rey didn't fight him at all.  Indeed, as soon as she was squeezed between Chewbacca and Luke, she closed her eyes and was gone to the world.  Finn smiled down at her or a second before he looked around himself, realizing that he had no idea where he could sleep now.  He then picked his way back until he found a place to sleep next to Poe as that was the only spot with some free blankets and even another added sleeping bag.

It had probably been set up for Rey, when she decided she was ready to sleep.  Still, Finn had felt where some skin had been showing and seen the way Rey shivered when he helped her stand.  She had let herself almost freeze by sitting there.  It was like she had been afraid she would miss when the ice melted.  Finn wanted to roll his eyes.  They would know when that happened, someone would hear the groans as the ice expanded as it melted.

Finn lay down, cuddling into the heat in front of him and wishing that no one had to be the outside of these little piles. 

Waking up to the sun was an interesting experience.  For one thing, Finn's eyes shoot open in seconds, as if the sound to wake had gone through his quarters back in the First Order.  Still, Finn didn't try to fall back asleep.  For once he felt completely at ease waking up.  His mind not bogged down by the fuzziness of sleep.  He gave one large yawn and sat up.

He wondered if they would be sticking around for very long.  For one thing, finding a place to do his business was a little troublesome until BB-8 must have heard him cursing, because the little guy bumped against his legs to get his attention, and then led him to where it had apparently been decided to do that sort of business.  Someone had made an attempt to make a latrine, but had quickly given up, though the area was still where, well...

You would think after being on disposal he'd be less squeamish about these sorts of things.

Finn finished up and was quickly making his way back to where the cave was.  He had to pause though, the sun had just started to peak over the horizon.  Finn stared at the colors.  The light was so bright that he was squinting, but it was beautiful, the way sparkles shined and shimmered through the space.  Finn let his body relax, slumping over and allowing his eyes to relax against the glare.  The sunrise threw colors everywhere, each sparkle taking on a different muted color. 

Then there was an echoing sort of boom.  The entire earth shook, and Finn found himself shifting from side to side as he tried to run back to the cave.  He watched as what had been the ice wall, starting to rapidly melt, the water falling quickly.  Finn heard a few curses, and saw Rey dragging up Chewie as Poe did the same to Luke. 

The caves were open, ready to accept them into the bowels of the earth. 

Then Rey walked toward the caves, determination in each step.

"I thought we were going in together," said Finn.  That made her pause, looking back at him. 

"Well, let's go," said Rey, practically bouncing out of her shoes.

"You hardly listened to what awaited you last night," said Luke, looking at Rey. Rey snorted, shaking her head, looking back over to the others.

"Fears, right?" asked Rey. "The cave will test us on our fears. I have already faced mine."

Luke shook his head. "You have faced what you already knew to be true.  There is more trials to face, more the force will push and mold you until your dying day.  The Force lives and breathes through us all, we rise and fall to its strength."

"You think we will fail?" asked Poe.

"No, but you must not think yourselves immortal or too weak," said Luke.  Finn wanted to groan at the wording.  Admittedly this is what he'd assumed Luke would have been telling them in the first place.  He'd thought he'd be getting a lot of confusing anecdotes that was supposed to actually be advice. "You must go in together.  Though from what I've read, you will face your trials alone."

Finn looked at his friends, something was communicated with their eyes.  An understanding of some sort at least. 

"You only have so long until the sunsets and the ice reforms.  Three hours at the most," said Luke.  Rey took in an audible breath.

"Let's start this party then," said Poe, throwing his arms over Rey and Finn.  Finn let out a huff for a laugh, and Rey was the one who took the first step toward the cave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently Finn is a major cuddler in my story. It serves it's purpose I suppose, but when I started writing, while cuddling was a thing, I didn't think Finn would take it to such an extreme.


	9. Lost Souls

Darkness took over their path quickly. 

"This is one of five planets," said Poe as it got darker. "It's the oldest.  Left by the Jedi because they thought all the crystals that could be used in the light sabers.  a little odd that he brought us here then.  The other planet was considered much more fruitful. To the point that the Jedi built an entire temple for younglings to follow.  Seems a little cruel, since the planet they choose to do it on was an ice planet where they would be stuck in the ice cave for nineteen days if they didn't make it back in time."

Rey made a sort of snorting time to let them know she was listening.  Finn hummed, reaching out and running his hand down Poe's arm, pretty sure the other man was prattling because he was nervous.  Poe glanced at Finn and then forced a smile.  They then came to a place where the cave opened up, all of them a pulsing light that let it open clear to a sort of cave. 

"Will we really be able to find a crystal?" asked Finn as they headed toward the other side, all of them looking around the cave. "Perhaps we're only supposed to find one for Rey."

"Luke said he was going to train all of us," said Rey, her steps wide and sure.  Finn and Poe followed her, not as sure in their steps as her.  Finn sighed.  Perhaps it was a force thing, or maybe it was that Rey was new to the force, that she didn't know that her two friends had basically no sense of the force. 

Well, maybe Poe did.  He was the best pilot after all. 

There was a groan somewhere deep in the bowels of the earth, like the warmth was expanding everything out.  Finn felt himself shiver, fear that the ice was going to give out under him at any moment.  Then there was a sound that created enough of a shaking and breaking that caused the entire earth shaking under them.  And then the cracks opened fast and hard, but something came out.  The creatures had them all falling over their own feet. 

Finn went for the weapon that was supposed to be at his hip, but he then winced, his attention thrown by the fact that he no longer had a weapon.  Really, why did he give away his weapon in the first place?  Luke had said he wasn't allowed to fight anymore, but even here, so far from the First Order, and yet still dangerous. 

The ice gave out from under him and he fell down into the darkness, bumping his way down.  Finn rolled down fast, bruises forming all over her body as he fell.  Eventually the decent stopped.  Finn held himself as still as possible, his body recovered from all the abuse it had taken on the trip down into this darkness.  Finn finally groaned and rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself onto his arms and then knees, grunting as something in his shoulder sent a flash of pain threw his entire body. 

Something wiggled on him, and Finn found himself scrambling at his sides where something was wiggling in his clothes.  Finn could see in his mind the small black creatures with tons of little legs that swarmed out of the crack in the ice, that Finn had apparently fallen into.  Finn cursed, pushing himself to his feet, feeling the ankle twinge in his ankles as he shivered onto his feet. 

The space was black, the only light at all shining in the space was way above his head, hardly a speck.  With a huff, Finn carefully moved his feet, wishing he had thought to bring a flashlight as he tried to use his other senses, trying to maneuver through the space around him.  He listened hard to try and listen to whatever was going around him.  Where were the creatures?  Those little legs had made little clicks as they came out of the ice, and he'd rather not just walk into a swarm of them.

Nothing though, he listened hard, feet sliding across the ice as he tried to carefully make his way to, well, somewhere. 

Finn looked up, letting his mind wander for a moment since the creatures did not appear to be here anymore, perhaps all the living ones had broken out with the ice. 

It was at that point that he felt his body bumping into the wall.  He sighed, his hand slipping over the ice wall as he cringed against the jarring pain in his shoulder while he tried to balance on his hurt ankle.  He took in a deep breath, breathing in harshly, and then letting it out, imagining that the pain in his body was washing off him.  Peddling on his skin, and then falling like rain from his body.

The next breath he took in was shuddering but easier.  He acknowledged that finding his crystal was pushed to the side.  It was no longer as important as getting out of the cave and getting some medical attention.  Going and finding his friends wasn't an option because without a weapon he would be worst than useless to his friends.  He would be a burden.  Better to go back, get patched up and send Chewbacca or BB-8 out to find his friends.

Suddenly, without warning, Finn's stomach turned and he found himself leaning over and expelling the little food he'd gotten down in the last few hours.  Sweat beaded his forehead and he shook his head.  No, with how much pain his body actually was in, and with no weapon, while leaving his friends behind seemed like it was the cowards way, it really was the best way for everyone.  The echoes of his breath calmed as Finn slowly pushed himself away from the wall and once again started his trek through the complete darkness.

Then he saw it, a light in the distance in front of him.  Finn felt his chest contract, like his heart had missed a beat, or another beat had joined it.  He stumbled toward it.  While he had clearly fallen far down into this cave, perhaps there was an opening that the hadn't known about because of how fierce the storm had been when they came in.  Another light appeared, but this one was closer, the light blue shining into the darkness.  Finn felt that same contraction in his chest again, but this time it echoed in parts of him that pulled at his depression, of that moment when he lost his fellow Stormtrooper. 

Then it happened again, the pulling at his heart impossible to ignore the way his own pain was.  Finn found himself falling to the ground, tears prickling at the edges of his vision and his breath hitching in aborted sobs.  He shook as the lights appeared around him, letting his head fall back as he looked at each new speck that appeared like stars in the darkness that held him before.  Then the lights surrounded him and echoed in his head.

Then the sensation reached its peak and plateau, the feeling echoing and dragging him down.  Every light like a soul that called out in a moment of broken pain of the last moment of life, held in that moment for eternity.  Finn felt one tear escape the corners of his eyes, falling down his cheek.  He slowly pushed himself up onto his feet again as he looked around at each little crystal. 

It was like each one that shined in the darkness was a soul lost.  Finn took in a deep breath.  Who could these be?  He'd heard of this before.  When conditioning, or brainwashing, fell apart as it did to those Stormtroopers pushed to their limits.  When the mind could no longer take what it had been pushed to do.  When torment became too much and the human need to connect to others or give in made her break apart.  They would be lost into their minds, listening to screams of their victims, of the few friends they had made.  They would attack everyone in a blind panic, throw off their helmets and often try to rip the helmets of others. 

They felt this moment when everything they had seen overwhelmed their mind.  Finn didn't know what these stars were supposed to be to him.  Were they the people he had killed, including all the people on the Starkiller.  Everyone he'd been raised with.  Everyone who'd held his hand.  Everyone who'd yelled at him, given him orders, stood beside him.

Or were these the victims of the First Order.  Were these the villagers that Finn had watched mowed down before him?  Were these every soul on the planets that had been destroyed with each planet.  The cries rang in his brain again, making his gut clench again and his body curl into itself.  Standing but collapsing in on himself like he was flinching away from hard blows. 

All of them dead.  How many planets were there in that attack?  Two, three, more?  All Finn had been able to absorb at that moment was that the First Order was attacking.  That he couldn't let something that horrible happen again.  But with so many people dead.  With planets destroyed in a blink of an eye, it made it clear that the First Order had to be stopped, but at the time it seemed so foreign or incomprehensible. 

He knew none of them, how could they be more than another tragedy in a universe that seemed to burst with tragedy and heartbreak.  What did the Rebellion mean to Finn when he knew Rey was held captive and knew the methods they used to torture her. 

Every life on all those planets.  All those lives through the centuries.  Taken.  Here for a breath and then gone.  Lost in explosions, in gun fire, to bodies untested by the weight of the worlds, to minds not yet formed, to wrinkled hands and aged minds struggling against decay finally wins out.

Finn fell again, his knees striking against the ice, his body curling inward deeper and deeper as his forehead rested against the cool surface, his hiccups of pain clenched in his teeth as his hands flexed like he could catch any of them.

Yet, in all this pain, he can feel his own.  Finn took a deep breath in, letting the pain of his own body wash through him for a moment before imagining it falling off him again.  His pain echoed through the very core of this cave, ringing in the constellations.  Because if these were the moments where life screamed its last breath, than his pain was that of life.  This pain that echoed in each bruise was proof that he hadn't yet died.  Because in all this death.  In all this destruction, bloomed life, came creation.  Sometimes, maybe all the time, what was created came from death.  Came from giving up the most precious thing held by any creature.

In this death wove life.  Pulled at stories, echoed in songs, imagined in minds.  Almost forgotten, but never truly lost by those that moved through the force.  It stayed with them, in that last breath the force moved through you and stole you out into its arms.  You weren't alive anymore, but you were not lost. 

Now Finn found the power to stand.  His pain moved through the cave, now both apart of himself, but also a part of everything around him.  As the cries of death sounded around him, he let loose a cry of life.  Pain found a hold, found a common ground to stand and look and reflect. 

Was there such thing as a peaceful death?  As a moment of joy when life was taken?  Could the common ground be found in joy, in wonder, in peace?

The thoughts chased themselves in Finn's head but were in the end completely pointless. 

That's when Finn truly saw it.  In the pale light of each star, each one not even bright enough to illuminate the cave, there was one that shone out brighter than the others.  It hung down low, held by drooping stone.  Finn reached out, hand shaking from the strain it put on his bleeding shoulder.  He'd regret this, that was certain, but this... Luke had been right.  There was a crystal for Finn.  Perhaps in this cave, he could find the force.  He could let it lead him where he needed to go.

Finn's hand wrapped around the cool crystal, an absent smile touching his lips as the stars all around him winked away.  Pain replaced with a hollow need.  Finn wouldn't forget this.  Wouldn't forget the pain, but more importantly wouldn't forget the balance.  The way that life and creation could speak to the destruction.  How it moved between each other in understanding.  He would create what had been lost.  Somehow he would bring life where there had only seemed to be destruction.

He would remember every planet destroyed by the dark side.  He would remember those impossible moments, and instead of grieving, he would bring understanding and remembrance.  He would be the start of that echo.

Of course, it was in that moment, when the small crystal snapped from where it hung, that Finn felt his body starting to fall.  His foot touching nothing as it went down into what appeared to be another hole in the ground, and his other foot collapsing under his weight. 

Finn fell. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, fine, I admit it, the place is loosely based on the episode from Star Wars: The Clone Wars-The Gathering. An episode that I think reflects the overall feel I personally got from the tv show. That it had a bunch of really interesting ideas, but was too silly (you could substitute another word for silly) to be able to pull it off to the best effect. And because of the run time also had to have it be too simplistic, or that it was trying to do so much at once that it wasn't able to really do the idea justice.
> 
> It should be noted this is not the planet from the tv show, obviously, and I can have there be multiple places for Jedi's to get their crystals if I want them too.


	10. Crystals

With his heart in his mouth, his stomach churning, Finn felt his body falling once again down.  Finn swore at himself.  He shouldn't have reached out blindly when it was so dark.  He should have kept his feet scraping against the ground as he went forward, should have kept making sure each step forward was safe.  Then Finn's outstretched hands hit against the other side of this hole.  He felt his entire body jar, and he tried to find purchase on the wall, his hands scraping ice even as one hand bounced against the ice.

He fell for a couple of seconds, before one larger outcropping almost bumped him back, but his fingers get just enough purchase that he is bounces against the ice, almost loses the finger holds, but they keep somehow.  He lets out a sigh, the crystal clenched in his hands.  Pain echoes in his head, still both inside and outside his body so in a weird way not part of him.  But he is aware that even when he pushes the pain away, his actual body could spasm or lose control in some way, making at least one of his hands let go.

Finn looked up, not sure what he expected to see, but is surprised when the cave doesn't look nearly as desperately dark as it had before.  Instead the light is like when Rey, Finn, and him had gone into the part of the cave where the ice had cracked open.  Finn swore, trying to bend his arms enough that he could place his elbows and catch perhaps another hold and drag himself out of that pit.

There was a flash of light in the cave above.  Finn glanced up fast, trying to see it, but maybe it had just been a thought lost in the air.  He sighed, shaking his head, and then his breath caught in pain. It sent ripples through his entire body, the pain jarring enough that he had to let his arms relax, the shaking in his entire being making him slowly lower himself down from the little he'd been able to drag himself up.  With a few more hard breath, Finn tried again, trying to be sure that the next time he tries, he'll get it.

With a long sigh, Finn tries again to reach up and grab those holds.  But his fingers are slick against the ice that clings to his fingers.  Finn feels his stomach roll, bile at the back of his throat.  Then his shoulder spasms, but he is still able to throw enough of his body onto the outcropping that he doesn't fall.  Instead his body rolls with them, spasms making their way down his body as he continues to breathe, letting the pain out.

"Finn?" and then the former Stormtrooper looks up.  Poe is there, and Finn has to flinch away from the light shining down into his eyes. "Finn!"

"Hey Poe," said Finn, giving a shaky smile, but he can't see Poe's expression properly with the way the shadows are being thrown around. Finn tries to get a good grip on the ice.  The other man is still too far away to reach.  Poe bites his lip, and Finn gasps a little, his arms shuffling as he tries to find a good grip on the ice.

He flails against the ice a little.  No footholds anywhere to be found in the ice.  Then something hits him on the head.  He shakes a little bit, then grabs it.  A rope. 

"Alright, I've got it anchored and I'm about to start pulling up," shouted Poe from somewhere beyond Finn's sight.  The words take a moment to sink in, and by that time, Poe has started to pull the rope away.  Finn grips it in both hands, Poe grunts and pauses and Finn takes that moment to wrap the rope around his arm enough times that he was afraid he was going to tumble away.

The way is slow, Finn ends up leaning back so he can walk up the wall.  Poe grunts and pulls, and there are a couple of times he slips down the ice and Poe curses.  But Finally Finn is pulled over the top, he stumbled across the ice, feet slipping until he collapsed into Poe's arm.  Finn smiled up at Poe as the other supported him until he was standing again.

Poe smiled at him, but the smile quickly fell.

"You're hurt," he said.  Finn shrugged, the pain sending spasms down his arm.  He closed his eyes, picturing the pain pebbling and falling again.  It would do no good to feel it until it could actually be seen to.  When he opened his eyes he saw that Poe was looking at him in worry, so he forced a smile.

"Not that bad.  Might have scraped up my shoulder pretty bad, and I think I sprained my ankle, but everything else is just bruises," said Finn.  Poe nods, but keeps staring at Finn, his eyes going over his body as if he could figure out where the worst of Finn's wounds were just by staring at him. "So, did you fall down here too?"

Poe blinked, then shook his head.

"No, the crack was easy enough to get down with Rey lighting my way," said Poe with a shrug.  Finn didn't know what to do with this information.  Apparently him falling down and bumping his way down into the abyss meant that every bump was his fault.  If he had actually paid attention, then he could have stopped himself. 

Still, Finn looked down at his hand, the little crystal, hardly an inch long, no longer shining, but definitely his. 

"Is that really a crystal?" asked Poe, his breath coming out quick as he looked at the thing in Finn's hand.

"Yeah, I was reaching for it when I fell down that hole," said Finn, and then chuckled as he looked around the cave. "Actually, it was weird.  I don't know if my mind was playing tricks on me after the fall, if I hit my head, or if it was the force, but for a little bit, it was like the only light down here were a thousand tiny glowing stars.  This one was the was the brightest."

"That would explain you were walking around like you couldn't see," said Poe.  Finn raised an eyebrow at Poe, the best pilot pointed behind him to where Finn had fallen.  Finn blushed and shrugged.  Poe snorted and put a gentle hand on Finn's shoulder, moving him so that he was facing back toward where he had fallen. 

Finn blushed, it was a good thing he hadn't been able to stumble very far, though as he looked up to where a light was shining down and two ropes, Finn couldn't help but feel it would still be a difficult to climb up.  Thankfully, it seemed his mind or the force had been playing tricks on him, and it was only a twenty feet climb instead of the hundred feet that it had looked at first. 

Still, his arm gave a painful twinge that had him clutching at his arm.  He was starting to think that the damage there was worse than he had first believed.  Poe looked at him in worry and Finn tried to force himself to smile.

"You and Rey find your crystals yet?" asked Finn.  It would be weird if he was the only one to get them.  Though he supposed that they would just have to wait until the sun came around again for the others to get theirs. 

"Rey did, when she figured out how to stop the creatures, they brought her one where inside was apparently the glowing stone," said Poe.

"And you?" asked Finn, but Poe shook his head.

"But we should get out here and take you back to the ship," Poe said, handing Finn the rope.  Finn took it and started climbing.  Poe stood behind him, and Finn found himself sending an irritated glare at the other man.  He appreciated that the other man was concerned about him, making sure that if he did fall, he would get caught.  But Finn knew how much he weighed, and didn't think that it would be a good thing for either of them if Finn fell on his friend and broke a bone or something.

Plus, Finn could make it up.  Once he had enough slack he would tie it around himself so that he could be dragged up.  Then Poe was reaching for Finn.  Finn found himself holding completely still, trying not to move, not sure what the Pilot was reaching for.  Then the man reached to touch Finn's side, reaching under his clothes making Finn blush and his arms shake. 

Before Finn could ask what the man was doing, Poe pulled away, but in his hands was a crystal.  Finn felt his mouth and he looked to Poe, who met his eyes.  They just stared at each other for a moment before Poe shook his head, put the crystal into a pocket.  He then in distraction grabbed his own rope and started climbing.

That threw Finn out of his own staring, and he had the sudden need to feel himself over to see if somehow he had another crystal on him besides his own that he had shoved into his own pocket.  He shook his head, and followed Poe.  The other man seemed to have almost forgot his presence, not talking to Finn at all and going a little faster than Poe could keep up as the former Stormtrooper slowly and methodically made his way up. 

Finally he reached the top, smiling as Poe seemed to remember him and helped Finn over the lip of the crack and onto the icy floor.  Finn then jumped as a loud clicking made toward him.  He looked down were the black creatures clicked toward him, making angry sounds.  Finn found himself clutching at Poe as he had no weapon, and his ankle wouldn't support a full out run.  Though trying it out was starting to seem a good idea. 

Rey let out a huff of irritation as she stood from where she had been sitting.  Her light saber turned on as she should, the sound ringing in Finn's head as he watched the blue light cross the floor and cut in half one of the little metal creature.  It let out a little scream that turned Finn's stomach and made his eyes go wide. 

Finn looked up at Rey, the woman was staring down at what she had done, then looking at the creatures that now stood completely still on the ice.  Rey took in a deep breath, and then made a simple motion across her body and the little beings ran away into the darkened corners.

"We need to leave," said Rey, her voice sounding scratchy.  Finn glanced at Poe, but the pilot just shrugged, clearly just as confused as Finn was about what was going on.  Instead they headed out of the cave.  Finn glanced at the corners where the little metal creatures were.  Their little legs scratching at the ice.

"I don't know why she destroyed that one," whispered Poe suddenly into Finn's ear.  Finn shivered a little as Poe's breath circled the sensitive skin and then made a slightly breathy noise as Poe grabbed Finn's arm, rearranging them so that Finn was leaning against Poe, weight taken off his twisted ankle.

"Walk in front of me," demanded Rey suddenly, her light saber coming out again as she pointed in front of her.  She glared at them, no, she was glaring at Poe.  It was like Finn didn't even exist.  There was a pause where the two just stared at each other.  Neither said a word, before Poe nodded his head and walked forward with Finn.  Finn kept his gaze flickering between the two, still trying to see what Rey was doing as she walked behind them, craning his neck to see her.

Finally he gave up and walked beside Poe.  Some part of him knew that he could just ask what was going on between the two.  But something in his gut told him he didn't want to know, or maybe shouldn't know.  Whatever it was, Poe was more than glad when they ducked under the ice and went back into the main part of the cave where Chewie instantly picked Finn up bridal style and they started making their way to their ship. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun, dun, dun... seriously, I have no idea how long this will drag out, especially with Finn being a wet blanket who just wants everything to be ok. That said, geeze, seriously, it wasn't supposed to take that long. Silly.


	11. Death of the Mind

The ship smelled weird.  Maybe it was the medical supplies that were scattered around as Chewbacca oversaw getting the ice junk out of Finn's back as Rey and Poe took off to their next destination which was on the same planet.  Whenever Finn made even the smallest noise of pain, Chewie laughed at him, the chuckle causing him to glare at the Wookie, but that just caused Chewie to make some sort of push or hit that had Finn biting back more pain.

Apparently this was getting back at him for when Finn took care of him after the thing with him and Han Solo.  It didn't seem fair since Finn had been hurt by the Wookie when Chewbacca had been hurt, and now Finn was being hurt when he was hurt.

Chewbacca finished up the bandages and shoved some pain killers into the Stormtropper, just as they were landing again.  The way was a little bumpy, but as soon as they landed, Luke was already there getting out.  Chewbacca made a sort of irritated noise, before he jumped after Luke, yelling something that Finn couldn't understand. 

Rey and Poe then walked out of the cockpit.  Rey gave him a strained smile and helped him stand.  Finn sighed, testing his weight on his sprained ankle, before Rey hit him over the head with the flat of her hands.  Finn sighed.  While they had basic medical supplies on the Millennium Falcon, it wasn't anything meant to be more than a quick patch-up.  That meant that while the bleeding had been stopped, and his wounds bound, Finn would still be taking the really long path to actually healing. 

That meant he had to take the crutches that Poe handed him.  Finn looked at the things, wishing that it was only a couple of days he'd be restricted to them like before.  Finn couldn't remember any Stormtroopers ever using them.  Whenever Finn had gotten hurt when fighting the nasty that made their ways into the garbage, he'd been told to suck it up.  If anyone complained or in the odd moments when someone refused to walk on a wound that the superiors said to work on, they were disposed of.  How that happened depended on the timing, but Finn remembered being dragged to one.

It was hard to believe that even someone as shifty as Han Solo could have a child as morbid and aggressive as Kylo Red.  Perhaps the sith apprentice was trying to even out the good his parents did with his own evil deeds. 

"What time is it?" asked Finn, leaning on Rey while she helped him up.  Poe brought him some clothes, and Rey disappeared.  Finn frowned and turned to Poe.  Smiling a little as the other man actually helped him into his clothes.

"Good thing we're somewhere warmer," said Poe, helping Finn into the clothes he'd helped him find in the Resistance.  It took some doing, but the clothes were short sleeve shirt that only had trouble getting on and that the worst was where the bandages bulged.  Finn sighed, he'd just healed from the cut on his back, and then he got punctured by the ice.  Really, he had bled a lot less than he probably should have for whatever reason. "You feeling alright?"

"Yeah," said Finn, turning around and catching Poe's hand in his own. "Thank you for, you know, catching me."

"I didn't get to you quite that quick," said Poe, a frown marring his face.  Finn rolled his eyes, it might have been close.  If Finn hadn't somehow got his hands on that outcropping.  If there hadn't been an outcropping in the first place, then Finn would be dead now. 

Poe slipped his hand out of Finn's.  The stormtrooper watched as Poe almost seemed to run from the ship.  He was gone so quickly that Finn ended up looking down at his hands.  What had he done to make Poe run like that?  They had just been talking.  Poe had been helping him get the shirt on. 

Perhaps this was like when Finn had been a stormtrooper.  At first he would have stormtroopers that seemed interested in talking to him.  About doing more than a few fleeting hand holds.  Who wanted to find dark corners to just lean against each other.  Finn had allowed, had wanted the hold of a hand, a leader perhaps, but more than that wasn't even a thought.  When anyone even attempted to do more than lead him, he'd basically ignored their attempts, or explained to them that they were losing focus on their jobs, or even that it wasn't allowed. 

Of course, the 'it isn't allowed' never worked out for whoever he was talking to.  Sometimes they would try to debate him.

As if they already knew their destination, Finn's feet took him out of the ship and onto the rocky ground.  No one wanted to be around Finn for long as a friend before Rey and Poe, because before this moment, Poe hadn't really had a mind of his own.  He had just existed in this world without a real thought of his own.  His mind in a haze of obedience that he hadn't been able to escape from. 

Not until the screams.  Not until the blood.  With as many monsters as he'd faced, as many deaths from them as was bound to happen, he never felt it until it was painted across his helmet. 

Suddenly Finn felt his feet stop.  He blinked, shaking himself, putting a hand to his head.  And then he swallowed.  Fear gathering in his chest.  It made his entire body shake as he collapsed onto the ground, and he started scrambling at his chest until he found the little crystal.  He held it in his good hand, tight enough that the edges broke his skin and a couple of droplets of blood fell onto his pants.

With a shaking body, he tried to remember the pain that he had felt.  That pulsing that had driven him nearly mad with grief, that he had echoed back.  That was real.  Walking here in a haze of his own thoughts?  That was almost worse than before.  At least as a stormtrooper he had the excuse of being brainwashed.  What did he have now?  He had snapped out of it. 

Suddenly, and with no reason beyond a bit of blood and screams.  Even in sanitation, hadn't he suffered worse than that? 

Then someone as next to him.  Finn leaned into Rey, allowing himself to lean against her and for her to take loosen his hold on the crystal.  She turned them, so that they were leaning with foreheads pressed against each other.

"What if she's right?" asked Finn softly.  Rey met his eyes, Finn's eyes straining up to look at Rey's.  She lifted one eyebrow. "What if my mind isn't my own?  What if I'm here just to..."

Finn didn't get to finish because Rey pushed her hand against his mouth.  She stood suddenly and Finn found himself almost falling over to himself to the ground.  He looked up to see her standing, her mouth a firm hard line as she looked over her shadow at something far away.  Finn tried to follow her gaze, but only saw Luke and Poe turning away.

"Where are they going?" asked Finn, and Rey turned her hard gaze to him.  He looked at her in confusion. "What's wrong."

"Nothing," said Rey, then paused and then shook her head. "I think."

"You think?" asked Finn with a laugh, standing up, trying to will his shaking away.  He shouldn't have allowed himself to get so caught up in the moment.  He just had to... not let his mind go.  He wasn't with the First Order.  He would help his friends.  He hadn't lost his mind.  He'd just let it wander a little bit. "What is going on Rey?"

"Nothing," said Rey with a shake of her head, still frowning as she looked at the place that Luke and Poe had been.  Finn sighed.  Well, this was going to get him nowhere it seemed.  That meant that he was on his own as far as working out what was wrong with Rey.  Had something more than Luke being a general pain happened while she was alone with him?  She did seem rather more irritated with the whole situation than seemed appropriate.  Even if Luke had been goading her. "This used to be a garden."

"A garden?" asked Finn looking around himself.  There was nothing here to suggest that.  Well, they were outside, surrounded by a large collapsing sections of rock buildings with what looked like ornate carvings in the sides and pillars.  The ground they stood on, however, was only dotted by plant life.  He reached down, digging his fingers into the dirt.  He stood, the soil falling from his hands as he ran it across his fingers. 

It was so dry, it was no wonder that the plant life was stifled.  Though vines grew on the very rock and pillars of the old, decrepit buildings, it was clear that, at least here, the dirt was too dry to grow anything, at least at the moment.

"He said something about the ground being poisoned before I left," said Rey.  Finn turned to her, chuckling a little.

"Aren't you supposed to listen to him?  He is your master," Finn pointed out.  Rey hit him on the shoulder.

"He's your master too," said Rey, and then looked pointedly at where Finn's hand was clasped around his crystal.  Finn let out a chuckle, his hand going around to the back of his head as he laughed.  Rey snorted and shook her head. "And that information wasn't for me."

"Then who was it for?" asked Finn.  Rey looked at him, and then she laughed.

"You really aren't much of a Jedi are you?" asked Finn with a deep sigh as he shook his head.  The whole thing seemed rather ridiculous, mostly because part of the reason he agreed with her was because he wasn't exactly sure what he had done to make her say such a thing. "I'm going to practice forms that Luke showed me.  Do you want to learn them?"

"I can't fight, remember?" asked Finn.  Rey rolled her eyes.

"These forms aren't about fighting.  They're about finding your center.  About being able to just stop thinking for a moment and concentrate on your body," said Rey. "At least, that's what Luke meant I think."

Finn immediately started shaking his head, taking steps back, but forcing himself to smile.  The last thing he needed at the moment was to stop thinking.  If in that space where he stopped thinking was where the danger lay.  If ever he had somehow been sent in as some sort of sleeper agent or the like, then letting his mind drift to how it had been before the raid would be when he could be used to kill his friends.

In this moment, he could only find himself.  He had to find who he was and what he believed in.  It was there somewhere.  The General had thought that's what he needed.  Maybe that's what Luke thought he needed too.  Maybe he sensed the potential for Finn to be brainwashed again, and thus had told the former stormtrooper how to fight it.

Maybe that's what his crystal was for.  Finn looked up, watching as Rey went through what looked like simple exercises, her breath steady, her movement sure, putting the moments together almost as if it were a dance.  Finn closed his eyes, not to let his mind wander, but to think of the dances he'd seen in his stay at the Resistance.  He hadn't seen many, but he'd remembered during his recovery, a man coming in and surprising his wife, sweeping her off her feet, music following him and suddenly the gloomy space becoming alive for the moment as the two swayed in each other's arms. 

Rey's dance was more coordinated, like the dancer he'd seen on a holo once.  But in them seemed the echo of that moment.  Of passion released, though not in elevation, but acknowledgement, before being let go.

Finn found himself sighing, and then turning on his heels.  He would not find his answers coddled by Rey.  His own feet and mind must be vigilant.  He would no longer run from his emotions, from who he was.  He would face himself head on.

He would not be the death of them all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. No real reason, mostly just laziness.


	12. The Flower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait, but the school season has really got under way now. Weekends might be the only time to write and update now.

Eventually Finn found himself just wandering.  He'd been thinking himself in circles while the run starting heading further down the sky, now it wouldn't be long before the sun started to go below the horizon.  Finn shivered a little, running his hand on his arms.  It wasn't overly cold, just enough to make his hair stand on end. Still, it made his ankle and shoulder give a twinge of pain.  It echoed in his head, distracted him from his work.

Something caught his eyes on his walk, and he found himself slowing.  He walked carefully forward, footsteps light as if he wanted to dance across the dirt, as if he didn't want to disturb the earth.  He leaned down, cupping the white bud in the palm of his hand.  The plant life here was hard, the trees ragged and gnarled, the vines thick and constraining, even the grass was hard and tough. 

Plants had somehow grown in the garbage, invasive plants that half the time were poisonous.  They were often elaborate plants that either were dark enough to blend in with the rest of the garbage or so bright it glowed.  They were beautiful, and there had even been a rumor that a stormtrooper had basically grown his own garden in one of the garbage holding areas and it had clogged up the system.  When the higher ups had destroyed the plants, the stormtrooper had gone berserk and had killed a whole platoon of stormtroopers before he was finally killed.

This, of course, was just a rumor.  Something whispered in the dark that the higher ups couldn't hear you say yourself.  Finn didn't know if it was true, hadn't cared when he was a stormtrooper.  But he'd known the stormtrooper that did something similar.  Of course not the same, Finn didn't see how a garden would be possible.  But one of the Stormtroopers who took his hands had always been fascinated by the plants.

In the middle of work, while they checked on the circuits, fixed loose panels, and loosened the junk so that it could be properly worked through the machine before it was recycled through the planet, he would drag Finn off to look at plants.  They grew in the most inconvenient places and the stormtrooper, Finn didn't even remember his designation, was always the one in their section of sanitation who was sent to deal with them.  And half the time he'd drag whoever was handy and half the time he'd get Finn.

Because Finn not having a record of any sort, it wasn't because, as he had thought, he'd been perfect in every way.  As more time passed, and he looked back at how he'd acted and not just how he remembered it, and realized that his mindset had just been to be a stormtrooper.  What the other stormtrooper did wasn't against orders.  Sure he talked about plants and would coo over the poisonous ones and even wonder out loud about how it that they were able to grow and flourish in this sort of area.

The man was strange, and Finn never got him in trouble, never reported how when not directly instructed to destroy the plants, he would relocate them to an area where they would still be eventually destroyed because it was the garbage or compactor and would be recycled the normal way eventually but wasn't taking care of them the way the higher ups had implied.  In Finn's mind, he was pretty sure, that was the fault of the superiors.  This stormtrooper was chosen because he liked plants which mean that he could get rid of the problem with the least amount of fuss in the shortest amount of time.

Everyone was supposed to have those quirks of personality, even the clones.  Interests that made you useful.  So some part of Finn must have understood that this was allowed in some way, and he never mentioned it to his superiors.  Just followed what the stormtrooper told him to do.  Just destroyed or removed and tried not to get poisoned.

Finn shifted forward, tapping his knees as he looked at the flower, shivering as it got darker and darker and the sky lit up as the sunset tinted the world in muted colors.  With a sigh, Finn leaned forward, cupping one of the flowers, and then digging his fingers into the hard earth, and then he stopped.  He knew how to uproot some plants, or at least how the stormtrooper had, but why would he do that now?

With a sigh, Finn sat back on his heels, letting his head crane against his neck as he closed his eyes. What was this flower?  What did it need to survive beyond the obvious.  Finn's fingers traced over his face, following the blood trail he'd seen on the helmet.  His eyes fluttered open, and he let out a loud sigh.  Information about plants danced in his head, but it was all jumbled together.  None of the information was very coherent, and it was all from a stromtrooper who had no formal training with plants and growing.  It wasn't like he'd been transferred from the fields or anything.

That did give Finn an idea though.  His thoughts escaped him then.  He tried to think about flowers, but the thought about how normal he was crept into Finn's mind.  Did Rey's past seem so muted to her?  Did she ever look back on the past, on things she had thought had happened or the person she thought she had been, but when she looked back on what actually happened she realized it was different.  More nuanced then she remembered.

Then Finn found the little compact he'd been issued at some point, though for the most part he forgot it existed.  The thing was supposed to act as a way to communicate with people on the base, though it didn't work off planet, and only worked on planets with the right sort of connections.  They were universal as this was a simple system, but it couldn't work on truly primitive planets. 

He pressed the buttons.  It had been explained to him what he could do with it in broad terms.  One of it was basic scanning and being able to take pictures. 

"Hey Finn," said Poe, making the former stormtrooper almost drop his little compact thing. "What are you doing?"

"Seeing if I could scan or take a picture of this..." Finn gestured at the flower, realizing that he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do with it.  Why did he care about this stupid flower?  Alright, so he had helped take care of troublesome invasive plants before in his job.  But working in sanitation, specifically policing the bowels in the disgusting mess that was the trash and recycling centers. 

Droids just didn't work that well in those quarters, and even defense in those areas couldn't take down certain alien monsters.  Most alien monsters that ended up in the middle of the dark and dangerous garbage area and caused enough chaos for Finn's superiors to take notice.

Finn sighed.  He'd let his mind wander again.

There was a bit of a snap that had him looking a Poe as he looked up at the man.  Poe smiled at him and handed him the compact.

"Here, I'll scan it, unfortunately yours is too basic to scan any living matter," said Poe. 

"Kind of useless," said Finn, glaring at the little thing.  Poe laughed, pushing at him playfully as he took out his own little pad, which apparently was voice activated, and scanned Finn's flower.

"Come on, there's a library that Luke showed me back in the temple," said Poe, tipping his head and standing up straight, smiling at Finn.  The former stormtrooper forced himself to smile back, his hands flexing at his sides. There was no reason to reach out for Poe, they weren't going to run or anything like that.  Instead Poe turned on his heels and Finn followed after a second, standing up and glancing down at the flower.

With a sigh, Finn shook his head.  There was absolutely no reason to care about vegetation. 

"So this is a temple?" asked Finn, trying to remember if anyone had told him that's where they were going. He thought that would make sense.  It sounded familiar.  He sighed, touching a hand to his head. Poe glanced back at him, his eyebrows furrowing together. 

"You alright?" asked Poe. 

"Yeah, fine, just forgot about my shoulder," said Finn with a shrug.  Poe snorted.

"You forgot that you had just recently hurt your shoulder?" he asked, sounding more amused than anything else.

"I'm used to ignoring wounds," said Finn with a shrug.  Really, getting used to pain was basic training.  You couldn't withstand pain, you washed out fast and your body joined with the rest of the garbage. 

Finn shivered.  He'd only stumbled on the human decomposition area once, yes there was a specific area for it.  There had been a disturbing amount who were children.  Supposedly because outside of random accidents and working the few places like sanitation and with rabid animals, the vast majority died off the Starkiller.

"Yeah, I guess most of us are able to do that," said Poe with a shrug.  Finn walked a little faster to check on his friend.  He frowned when he caught a look at Poe's face.  His frown was intense, the frown looking deep into, well, what looked like nothing.  Then he shook his head and looked over at Finn. "So this was one of the first Jedi temples, I guess.  That's what Luke said anyway."

"Really?" asked Finn. "So you think it will have something on the flower?"

"It probably has general information about the planet on it," said Poe. "Considering that Luke thinks that it's the best place for me to look for the information he's looking for."

"What's Luke looking for?" asked Finn.  Poe shook his head with a chuckle and then threw his arm around Finn's shoulder.  Finn smiled, leaning in a little.

"I have no idea," said Poe, throwing his arm out in a sort of exaggerated movement.  "I'm literally just trying to figure out how advanced this place was before it was abandoned and why it might have been abandoned in the first place.  It's actually amazing how well this place has held up.  Everything in the library works so far, I haven't come across any corrupted files or places shut down."

"How much time have you had?" asked Finn with a laugh.  Poe pushed him away.  Finn laughed and then fell to the ground, his ankle giving out from under him.  It was still sending shooting little needles of pain that was supposed to warn him that it was hurting and couldn't support as much weight as it normally would.

Poe chuckled and held out his hand, helping Finn stand and slapping Finn's good shoulder a couple of times.

"Only a couple of hours, admittedly," said Poe eventually.  Finn glanced at the man and then looked forward quickly so he wouldn't give away that it took him a couple of seconds to remember they were having a conversation before he decided to be a klutz. "But it's not like we have an infinite amount of time to hang out and learn to be Jedi.  I mean, the First Order is gaining power at the moment, and destroying their Star Killer is only going to slow them down so far.  It's better to try and attack while their down, not let them collect themselves and attack us and wipe us out."

"Three planets are now gone," said Finn, he could see those stars in the cave reflected in his eyes. "Four to the Dark Side."

Poe didn't say anything, a darkness growing in the space between them.  Finn didn't think that Poe would blame him, but Finn couldn't help but remember that once he had been a part of that group.  He had kept that Star Killer healthy and running, and now there were three planets gone.

How many people were gone because of the Dark Side?  How could the Light Side ever hope to bring balance to a universe where the sort of horror and terrorism that threatened and ripped through the universe to destroy.  Was balance ever possible?  Death existed, it choked through the universe, even when the Light Side went against the Dark Side, it only seemed to create more death.  Death for death.  The Death Star destroys a planet, the Light Side destroys a station that is the size of a small moon with a crew of people the size it needed to run a station that big. 

How many people really lived on the Star Killer?  It wasn't like a normal planet.  There were those associated with the First Order who worked on the outside of the planet, in domes, to feed the entire station with people working in various layers on the Star Killer. 

"Finn?" asked Poe.  Finn looked over at his friend, they had stopped.  It was his fault.  Finn started walking again, shaking his head.

"Sorry, I just... all those people.  It's impossible to picture," said Finn, the words coming out stilted, though he knew better than to say that he was also thinking about those who died on the Death Star as well.  Poe grunted in agreement, a hand resting on Finn's shoulder to guide the former stormtrooper in the right direction. "What did you see in the cave?"

Finn glanced back, and then regretted his question immediately.  The blood seemed to have seeped from his friends face, and that same faraway look was there.  Then it was gone.  Replaced with Poe's normal smile.

"I didn't get a vision," said Poe. "I just saw Rey control the bugs and you fall. Now, let's find you flower."


	13. Road Trip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I wrote something. Not edited like it should be, but it's almost been a year. This needs to happen now or I'll get distracted again.

"I thought that you were more a learn on the go sort of person," said Finn, waiting next to Poe as the flower was put through the computers database.  Poe shrugged.

"Practical experience is really important, and a lot of people learn to do things like flying from almost just that and learning from books and stale classroom," said Poe and then gave a little bit a shrug. "While I will always hold at I learned my most important skills while flying, I have a long history of spending a stupid amount of time in classrooms where you either sat down while reading, getting lectured, or arguing, or learning in very planned out educational jaunts."

"You prefer the more organic way to learning because of that?" asked Finn, a little hesitant because Poe just seemed so hesitant himself.  Poe smiled at him and handed him a flash drive and a bigger screen to read the information or probably do more with.

"It's a little complicated," Poe said, and then caught Finn's wrist when the former tried to push on a button when a flash of some crystal flower caught his eyes.  Finn shrugged, and Poe laughed, going back to searching for Finn’s flower. “I don’t like to feel like I’m being stifled, and I like getting my hands dirty.  But when learning to be a pilot, I still had to cram.  So, I would make a party out of it, invite all my classmates and make sure all of them had different text books.  We would read aloud, make stupid drinking games.  I only went to the library when I had to, when I couldn’t get anyone else to get it for me.”

The flower that Finn had been looking for appeared on screen.  Poe tapped some images before it all disappeared and Poe was handing the drive back to Finn. 

“You seem to know your way around this place though,” Finn said offhandedly as he brought up the information.  He had to agree with Poe that he didn’t want to stay in the library though.  Mostly because he wanted to be outside.  Maybe back where he’d found the flower. 

“My mother was a librarian,” said Poe, still poking at the screen he brought up.

“You used to go to her to work?” Finn guessed, and then immediately wished he hadn’t from the way his friend paused and glared at the screen. All right, even he could tell that this was a touchy subject. “Do you think any plant life flourished on this planet?”

Poe actually seemed to pause in thought over this.  Finn held his breath, hoping his friend wouldn’t take his comment to heart.  Finn didn’t have a mother.  Well, as far as he knew he didn’t.  His mother was probably dead, and if she wasn’t, then Finn hoped that she hoped he was dead.  Otherwise she was ok that the First Order had taken her child to be brainwashed to be a Storm Trooper. 

But that meant that he didn’t understand the look that passed Poe’s face.  He didn’t know from that look except that thinking about his mother made Finn looked pained.  There was history that Finn didn’t have. 

“Does that place tell you where there might be actual plant life nearby?” Finn asked, trying to make that look go away.  If looking for plants didn’t distract him, maybe the thought of getting out of this place would be good.  Finn remembered when they went running together, how they had lost themselves in playing in the water so far from the buildings and other people. 

“Actually, yeah, though I’ve never even heard of some of these, though they look like a lot of trees and vines,” said Poe, that look disappearing, the pain melting from his face as he almost seemed excited about what he found. “Here, I’ll put the information in and then we’ll find our way there.”

“Where?” asked Luke.  Finn glared.  Luke was not Poe.  Finn had heard him coming, he’d just hope that Luke would be able to read the situation and let Poe leave with Finn to find their plants. 

“I think it would be a good place for the three of us to mediate,” said Rey.  Which, as much as Finn liked her, why was everyone ruining his idea?  The point wasn’t just to get Poe away from the library, it was to get him away from other people.  Poe might like and want to be around other people, Finn knew that Poe needed his space from large groups too. 

Off course, his idea was carried out with everyone, and Poe seemed happy enough.  It was just… Finn wasn’t sure Poe was actually happy.  Around people, Poe usually was happy.  He was smiling with no signs of that vulnerability that Finn had just seen.  Of course, Finn couldn’t be sure.  Finn had only seen moments when Poe wasn’t smiling.  Those slow moments when they flew to Rey.  The time Finn had pointed out that Poe hadn’t been drinking the night before.  And at the library.

But people needed those moments, right?  They needed to be vulnerable around other people.  To be genuine to those less pleasant feelings.  That was why they were made to see psychiatrists.  

Instead of trying to give Poe another moment, maybe to make him smile gently instead of manically, he’s now walking with three people an hour away from the temple they had meant to stay at to find some sort of answers.  Finn felt this was a stupid idea.  Since they had to work with a healing station on the Millennium Falcon, his arm was still rather messed up.

Rey actually took his pack from him and wouldn’t let him take it back.

That meant that Finn was forced to just work through the pain.  It wasn’t that he hadn’t worked through pain before.  As a Storm Trooper, he had to learn how to work through pain.  If you let it get to you, you were dead.  If you weren’t hurt badly enough, they didn’t fix you unless they had to. 

Finally, they reached the trees.  They really were weird.  They grew out of the ground almost like triangles and bulged in places where Finn would have thought the trees had some sort of disease.  The leaves were odd too, hanging down with, as he got closer, Fin saw hard spikes sticking out of them. 

Rey walked up to the trees, looking around them, but not looking at all interested or awed or worried about how the trees looked.  Though that could be because she came from a desert environment.  Still, Finn would have thought she would have felt a small sense of wonder at least.  Perhaps, she was feeling that wonder.  Sometimes Finn had trouble reading Rey.  It wasn’t that she didn’t show emotion, it was just that she could be subdued.  Especially if that emotion wasn’t useful to what she wanted to do in that moment.

And what she wanted to do was have all three of them mediate. 

It was interesting.  Finn hadn’t really thought that Rey would be so interested in being a traditionalist.  But as he had known before, while he thought of Rey as a friend, he still didn’t know her that well when it came down to it. 

Still, Chewie went to go to do whatever he does, and Luke sat his three disciples down and made them meditate.  Meditating did nothing but make Finn fall asleep.  Which, it might have helped distract him from the way his shoulder was pulsing under the strain of moving around at how much it hurt.  He really shouldn’t have allowed this. 

Poe and Luke laughed at Finn.  Finn smiled along, it didn’t hurt seeing as he never wanted to mediate in the first place.  Then he’d met Rey’s eyes.  She looked pissed.  There wasn’t another word for it, and then he ended up almost running away when she looked at him after he hid a little behind Poe.

The trees up close looked even stranger.  They were a slight blue mixed with spots where the tree seemed to have exploded out of itself.  Pink puss falling in rivers from the bark.  Finn sat down on one of the jutting roots, looking up to see what the pink stuff was exactly and sighing when it turned out that it was just dangerous to the trees and reptilian type of species. 

Still, it looked the disease in so many of the trees meant that the disease had gone out of control.  The disease was also the reason that the roots jutted so far out of the ground.  This type of tree should have had roots that went straight and deep into the ground, tangling together so they could grow tall and straight into the air.

That didn’t even touch on the fact that Finn hadn’t even seen the vines that the tree almost needed in order to exist as they had a sort of symbiotic relationship. 

How had the plant life been so pathetic here?  The temple had ground that was so dry and barren, and now this place was full of disease. Perhaps it was the diseases fault.  It was actually an odd entangled problem.  The disease would destroy the tree, but change when in contact with fungus type plants that grew on the planet that changed the tree into amazing fertilizer so the trees would go on to flourish.

Maybe the fungus just hadn’t made it.  Finn looked further into the information that Poe had found from him. 

“What are you looking at?” asked Poe, sneaking up behind me again.  Finn took a deep breath, taking a moment to get his barring. He smiled as he looked at his friend and pointed to the fungus he was scrolling through.

“This fungus will help the trees with the disease become fertilizer for the trees later so that the disease doesn’t destroy the entire forest,” I said.  Rey walked over and frowned at the images.

“Why does this matter? I thought we were here to get connected to the force through nature,” said Rey.  Luke actually hit her with the stick he had brought with him.  She glared at him, but he smirked at her.  Still not bothered that his main disciple seemed to think he was the most annoying person ever.

“How that will work for you and Finn will be different,” said Luke. “You do it through meditation, contemplation of the force through its connection you feel by sensing the force all around you.  Finn does it by learning and physically interacting with the plant life.  Poe does it by interacting with Finn and supporting Finn’s goals and passion.”

“What Finn and Poe are doing sounds… normal, not like they are connected to the force but more like buddies that want to help the environment,” said Rey, and then blushed when she met Finn’s eyes. “No offense Finn.”

“None taken.  I sort of agree,” said Finn.  The only reason he didn’t completely agree was that the way she said it made what Finn wanted to do sound extraordinarily trivial. 

Luke shook his head.

“We’ll leave this forest when you learn why what Finn and Poe are doing connects them to the force,” Luke said, turning and walking away.  Perhaps looking for Chewbacca. 

Rey looked like she was about to explode, her face turning that interesting red color.  Finn met Poe’s eyes and they both looked back at Finn’s fungi.

“So, we’re looking for these?” asked Poe.

“You really want to help?” asked Finn, looking at Poe.  Why would the greatest flier want to help with Finn’s little interest?

Still, Poe just directed that manic smile in Finn’s direct.

“It seems like Luke thinks that this is my path to following the force.  Maybe I’ll be able to feel it this time, like you and Rey did in the caves,” said Poe.  Finn nodded.  Of course, while Finn didn’t think he was connected to the force the way Rey was, he did remember what he had felt in the cave.  He couldn’t deny that even if he wasn’t properly force sensitive, he had still had a vision. 

What that vision meant, and his dedication to creating something to combat all the destruction was still ambiguous and unknown.  But Poe had only seen his friends stumble through their visions.  He had said he hadn’t gotten one.  So now… now apparently, he was looking. 

“In that case, I don’t think there’s any nearby.  We need to find trees with those vines you mentioned earlier.  They apparently bloom a flower that attracts the fungi,” said Finn.  Poe nodded and they both went deeper into the forest, leaving Rey alone, but Finn had a feeling she needed space in that moment in the way Poe needed a goal.


	14. Fungus

The trees were actual different species.  They all looked the same until you actually paid attention to the color of the leaves, bark, and the patterns to be found on both.  This was the dry season, which was part of the reason that everything was dying, but that wasn’t an excuse as to why everything was so bad.  This used to be a place of profound spirituality.  Of connection and life.  It was meant to be lush, to be burst with plant and animal life.

Finn had yet to see more than insect life and the plant life was thin.  Few plants beside the trees seemed to flourish, but to know for sure if it was truly thin, he would have to climb to where the fun shone.  Still, there should be wet, bubbling plants on the floor.  Where there weren’t vines, there should be mushrooms to make homes for a small trilling bird.

Finn and Poe kept an eye out first for the vines.  There was more the further they went in, but they were still few and far between.

Then Finn smelled something.  Thick and musky.  A sort of smell that curled the senses.

“Do you smell that?” asked Finn, fighting the instinct to cover his nose.  He could tell that the smell itself wouldn’t kill him.  He’d run into that before.  There were few smells that killed instantly, but prolonged exposure could cause such a reaction.

“I don’t smell anything different,” said Poe, obviously sniffing, moving his head from side to side in exaggeration as he made loud sniffing sounds.  Finn couldn’t help the smile that showed off his teeth and a small shake of his head. “Still smells like the forest.  Can’t even really tell how sweet it was when we first came up here.”

Sweet?

But Finn didn’t ask, instead trying to figure out where it was that he could be going.  The smell got stronger the more to the left he went.  The root in one place went up past his head, and Finn gave a little jump and pulled himself up.  Poe and he hadn’t had any destination in mind.  They figured they could wander as far as they needed as long as they had their communicators.  After all, if needed, they’d just request Rey or Chewbacca activate their communicators so Finn and Poe could use it to lead it back to them. 

Mostly they’d been going the path of least resistance.  Walking long roads of simple roots or even on the ground.  This way was much harder to navigate and took a little more finesse.  Still, Finn had walked through worse.  Well, obviously, he’d been a sanitation worker.  But he’d also walked through parts that were more treacherous.  Where metal and poisons lived under wet filth and waste. 

So, when Finn stepped into thick mud that sucked him up to his ankles, he didn’t freak out or shriek like a droid.  Instead, he held himself completely still, and slowly eased backward, pointing his toes, and letting the mud move his foot at the same time he pulled his foot out with a thick plop.

“Finn, you alright?” asked Poe, coming to stand next to Finn.  Finn nodded.  Thankfully Poe had stopped before touching the dark muck that Finn had let himself stumble into.

“Yes, I’m fine,” said Finn. “But I don’t know how deep this is.”

Finn reached over to touch the muck, his fingers pushing over the muck.  He could feel the wetness that enriched itself deep into the decaying mess.  When he brushed off the gathering dust and shriveled stalks of leaves, there were build ups of grey, twirling matter.

“The fungus,” said Poe, sounding as excited as Finn said. “Look, the vines are even here. Alright, now what do we do?”

Finn brought up the information he had on the fungus.

“Are these the same vines as the ones on the temple?” asked Poe, going over to touch one of the vines.

“These are thicker and create a pattern like stairs,” Poe pointed out, wishing he had brought more supplies with him.  He tried to think about what he brought with him.  Luke had encouraged them to bring enough supplies for three days.  Poe wondered if Luke knew how long it would take Rey to answer his question satisfactorily, or he and Poe would be going back to get some things from the Millennium Falcon. 

Though that brought up questions of its own.  This planet was barren, the dryness making everything feel rough.  They couldn’t stay here indefinitely.  Luke couldn’t mean for them to spend their own apprenticeship here.  At the very least they would have to do supply runs. 

“Poe, could I have my pack?” Finn asked.  He really had only come here to just look at the plant life, but he felt compelled to try and save the plant life here.  To encourage it to heal when it seemed like it had become so broken. 

Was this what he meant when he said he would bring life instead of death?  To try and save the dying plant life of one planet that wasn’t even inhabited anymore.  Without animal life, how could this planet thrive?  The insect life was something, but the amphibian life must have been killed off from this forest at least, and Finn had yet to see any warm-blooded creatures, or anything bigger than his finger with the insects.

No, that didn’t sound like enough.  That wouldn’t help to flourish what had been destroyed.  That was hardly a pebble in the bucket. 

Finn startled looking through his pack, still trying to be mindful of his shoulder and giving a token thanks to Poe.  The other man didn’t seem to mind.  Poe sat down next to Finn, folding his legs and reaching forward to touch the edge of the plant.

Then he opened the information on his own.  Finn glanced up to see Poe going through the list of fungus.

They ended up emptying a seal for two pairs of extra clothes.  It made the bag bulge, but there was enough extra room that it could still be zipped tight.  In one bag went the carefully harvested fungus, in the other went the clippings of the vines.  The vines were the most trouble.  They looked solid enough, straight and clinging to the trees.  But when cut away, the tendrils moved like they were worms under his fingers, flexing and thrashing as they were placed into the bags.

Perhaps they sought the trees, or at least a rough surface to mold itself to. 

They activated their trackers, Luke agreeing to be their guide.  They both weren’t sure about that, but Rey was refusing to answer hers, so they just hoped the old Jedi wouldn’t do anything to rash.  Like lead them on a wild goose chase and get them all lost. 

“You two find what you were looking for?” asked Luke as they walked down one of the winding roots toward him.  Finn smiled and tried to hold out the bag that had the fungus, but his arm gave out before that. 

Poe took a couple of jumping steps toward him, but Luke was there faster, poking at Finn and making the former Storm Trooper wince at the feeling.  This was really pathetic.  He shouldn’t let the pain get to him like this.  He’d work through worse when he was a child.  He’d had to or he would be dead now. 

Luke tutted as he and Poe eased Finn’s arm out of his shirt.  The pain echoed in his head like a drum, but he was mostly looking at Poe.  The pilot looked disturbed.  His gaze hard as he touched the bandages. 

“It looks like you pulled the stitches,” said Poe, running his hand under the wounds that the Millennium Falcon hadn’t been able to fix up.  The ship really was very old and obviously, no one had put much weight in the regenerator. “You should have told me about this.”

“Then you wouldn’t have come with me,” Finn pointed out.  Poe rolled his eyes.

“This will just make it take longer for you to get healed,” said Poe with a tut. “This could have been after you had completely healed.

“I think this was an important step,” said Luke, also hovering around Finn’s back. “But I believe now would be the time to take it easy.  We don’t need you getting an infection.  When we get back to the temple, we should look at where the healing chamber is.  Perhaps some of it can be salvaged.”

Finn doubted that, but it was a nice thought he supposed. 

Still, Luke listened as Finn explained what they had found out.  He felt silly telling the old man about it.  Why would he care?  But the man seemed happy enough to listen to Finn ramble about the plant life they had found and how they were going to use it to help the forest grow strong again.  Finn even brought up the display, showing that the disease often happened in the dry system, breaking apart the trees so that the moisture inside was released and the trees around fed the tree around it while also becoming rich fertilizer for the soil.

Luke leaned in, looking at the diagrams and passages that Finn hap out, and at least feigning interest in what was happening. 

Poe was the one who ended up doing most of the work.  Finn felt a bit bad, especially when Poe griped about doing all the lifting, but then Poe threw one of the vines at him.  Finn dodged and then watched in interest as the vine molded itself to the tree that Poe was leaning again.

“You need to learn when people are poking fun at you,” said Poe with a roll of his eyes. Then Finn listened as Poe apparently pretended to be irritated he was doing all the work while Finn and Luke ‘lazed around.’ Finn could see that Poe was smiling even as he complained, but part of him couldn’t help but feel bad that it was felt to Poe to do all the heavy lifting. 

This entire thing had been Poe’s idea after all.  His little project.  He shouldn’t be forcing his friends to do all the heavy lifting no matter what little scrapes he had.

Luke ended up being a great distraction.  He quipped back at Poe at just the same rate as Poe could make his complaint.  The two were a great pair.  They had a great relationship going that seemed to hint at years of familiarity instead of only a few days.  Like they had been master and apprentice for years. 

It seemed like out of all of them, Poe was the one who was the one who acted most like an apprentice.  Not being groveling toward his master, but still respecting him even as they teased one another.  Rey wasn’t respectful at all.  She was more like the rebellious student.  The one who had a picture in her mind of what she wanted out of the apprenticeship and was frustrated when she didn’t get it. 

That left Finn.  Somehow, he had a feeling that he was the bumbling apprentice.  The one that barely made the cut and seemed to be pretending more than a proper disciple. 

“Humility is important,” said Luke, leaning over to scroll through the information that Finn had been looking through. “Pride is what led to the downfall of many a Jedi.  But you must also have confidence in yourself if you are ever to truly test your limits and become one with the force.”

Finn nodded, but was unable to look at the old Jedi.

“What do you think Finn?” asked Poe, coming to sit down next to Finn, apparently done applying the fungus to the diseased parts of the trees around them and encouraging the vines to grip the trees to they might climb to a tall height. “Getting some of the dead trees to the temple might help encourage plant life to grow there right?”

“Yes, but are you sure that you’ll be able to find any vehicles we can use?” asked Finn.  Poe shrugged.

“I think the worst-case scenario would be that we had to use the Millennium Falcon.  Which would mean we would have to refuel sooner than we had hoped,” said Poe. “I’ll be back in two days with supplies at least.  Though, perhaps you should come with me.”

“Why?” asked Luke. “The Millennium Falcon does not have anything to help him heal more than letting his shoulder rest here with us.”

Poe didn’t seem to completely buy this, but Finn wasn’t surprised when he left.  Rey appeared to see him off.  She was frowning.  She then looked over at Poe and wasn’t sure what to make of him.  Then she dragged him to mediate.  What was Rey obsession with mediating?  Finn didn’t understand, but he wasn’t allowed to move anymore, at least nothing ‘strenuous’.  Which since they were in a forest with roots that made the ground treacherous to try and follow.

So, Finn sat down and fell asleep trying to meditate.  He really didn’t get this whole mediating thing.  One more thing to prove he couldn’t be a Jedi.  No matter what Luke seemed to think. 


End file.
